


Frore

by shomarus



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, There's some Therese/Richard but let's be real for a moment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-01-20 15:46:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12436080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shomarus/pseuds/shomarus
Summary: frore • /frôr/frozen; frosty.It’s now that Carol Aird thinks that she’s finally free from the woes of love. It’s then that Therese Semco, part-time musician and aspiring photographer, enters her life.





	1. rule of thirds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this blends both movie verse with book verse, although you can see the movie verse shines through a little more.
> 
> disclaimer: i don't drink, i will never drink, and bar etiquette is something that escapes me. any mistakes (in terms of the setting) is more than likely due to a lack of available research elements. in any case.

"A martini, if you will? Oh, and dry. Please."

Carol flashed a coy smile the bartender's way, to which he nodded, tossing a similar sort of smile her way. Carol wasn't exactly an uncommon guest at Gertrude's, and the divorce certainly had not helped things in the slightest. If anything, Carol's infrequent drop-ins became much more constant, and any regular from around the area knew why. In short: Harge was a dastardly bastard, and Carol really wanted nothing more than to see him burn. Alas.

The drink was placed in front of her, and Carol took a sip. "Thanks, you're a dear." She stared at the bartender's back for a moment as he walked down to help another customer, before she turned her head to look at the rest of the place. Admittedly, most of the customers were ones she could pick out of a crowd fairly easily. Although Carol would hardly call herself one to gloat, the bar absolutely _reeked_ of high society. Pricey drinks for folks with pricier attitudes; Carol couldn't say she was exempt from that group.

Though today, something interesting walked through those doors. Carol placed the glass to her lips, and imitated a look of smug curiosity; one eyebrow raised while she smudged the rims with a lipstick-coated smirk.

"You can't back out of it now, Terry," spoke a man with a rather skittish-looking woman attached to his sleeve. "Besides, you could do with a drink or two. You look a little frazzled."

"No, no. Nervous," the woman managed to choke out after a moment or so. _Christ_ , Carol thought with a twinge of amusement. _Son of a gun can't tell when his own girlfriend is uncomfortable?_ Or rather, perhaps he's hoping that she _isn't_ , and covered it up with false bravado. Something that painfully reminded her of her own ex-husband, though perhaps it’d be animalistic to judge all men as barbaric because of two bad encounters. Carol looked away, but kept one ear trained to the conversation.

The man smiled. "Well, it's our first night out as a married duo. Of course you'd be a little nervous about the whole thing, right? Come on, let's get you a drink."

Carol snorted, and turned back to them. They sat themselves at a table, while Richard eyed up the bartender. God. What a way to miss hundreds of social cues; the poor thing was practically shaking in her boots. Downing yet another sip of alcohol, Carol felt her eyes roll.

"Richard," the woman started with no undue amount of unsureness in her tone, "you didn't have to do this, you know? Take me out. I mean, I was happily content to relax and watch a movie at home."

The couple began to bicker (in hushed tones, of course, because there was a standard to be held in such a place like this), and Carol felt no envy for this Terry character at all. Sympathy was a given—Harge had been just as pushy, and Carol had been just as much a pushover. In all stages except the end of course, and Carol took a private little pleasure in debating over whether these two would be returning to Gertrude's or not. Carol's best guess was that Richard would be back in one month's time, without Terry on his arm and very much with a chip on his shoulder.

Then again, Carol’s been wrong before ( _wrong about a certain Harge_ , came the thought in all its bitterness). Would Carol say she’d be particularly happy about being wrong in this instance? Well, perhaps not. It wasn’t her place to say whether Richard and Terry were necessarily happy or not.

She was vaguely drunk and sticking her nose in places where it didn’t belong, as per the course.

“Richard!” A man from across the bar hustled up to the duo, and Richard looked absolutely delighted. “Shit, it really _is_ you. You could have told me that you were heading to New York, hey?”

“Phil, it’s great to see you,” Richard stood up to give a welcoming hug to the supposed friend. “We were planning to leave it as a surprise until next week, actually.”

“We, you say?”

Richard’s grin widened. “Why yes! Therese and I married just a month ago! I couldn’t have been a luckier guy even if I wanted to be, Phil.” Therese said nothing, but offered up a polite smile. Carol’s eyes flicked away; she had a cute smile, and she’d forever curse herself for even having that thought in the first place.

“Congratulations, Therese, Richard. By the way,” Phil continued, after dipping his head and smiling, “I know a guy who’s looking for submissions to an art exhibition of sorts. Not quite a competition, but word on the street is that the guy hosting it’s actually a talent scout. I was gonna phone you up on Sunday about it, but since you’re already here… You got a minute to spare?”

“Oh, shoot.” Richard gave a look to Therese. “You don’t mind, baby? I’ll be back with you in a smidge.” Therese signalled to him, shooing him off with a flick of her hand, and she smiled again. And as soon as Richard and Phil were off in the corner, Carol figured that this was her chance.

Carol’s tipsy enough to the point where she might not hate herself in the morning.

Therese looked pleasantly shocked when Carol took her glass and slid into the seat across from hers—the one that Richard had been sitting in. Getting a closer look at her, Carol took in the intricacies of her character. Her hair curled towards the center of her face, and her eyes were big, green. Like grass against a warm autumn’s light. Carol could have stared for hours.

“Forgive me for the intrusion,” she spoke airily. “You don’t mind me taking a quick seat, do you? If I’m making you uncomfortable, I want to know.”

“No,” Therese said, after a moment of contemplation. “They’ll be talking for a while yet. Richard and Phil, I mean. They’ve been friends for quite a while, and I…”

Carol stared at Therese with a smile.

“Forgive me, I’ve lost my train of thought… Ah, I haven’t introduced myself, have I?”

“It’s only been, what, a minute?” The tone was joking, although the look on Therese’s face told Carol that perhaps the quick jab stabbed a little deeper than she had intended. So perhaps she _was_ drunk beyond the point of making this encounter go anything but badly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m Carol Aird. But not _Carole._ ”

There was that darling smile once more. “Carol,” she repeated, if for no reason other than to feel that name upon her lips. And how Carol _loved_ the way Therese said her name. “It’s a lovely name. I’m Therese Belivet… No, no. Semco. Therese Semco. But not _Thereese_.” Therese looked awkward, venusian, as though she was both here and there, but she was smiling, and she was _beautiful_. Carol liked it.

“Therese, treize.” She grinned, and leaned forward, propping up her chin with her hands. “You look like you’d rather be anywhere but here.”

Despite expecting her to cringe at this statement, Therese actually laughed. “Well, you wouldn’t be terribly wrong.” Her expression sours. This girl wore her heart on her sleeve. “Richard, he’s always doing things like this. I’m not… Not really a high-rise girl. These big establishments, they’re not really my thing.”

“Or is it because you’re out with him?”

The look of pause and hesitation is all Carol needs to know that she was right. The corners of her lips turned into a smirk. “No, that’s not it at all,” Therese said, perhaps only after noticing that Carol’s smile was akin to that of a cat’s. Carol had the strangest feeling, one that said she knew exactly what Therese’s next words would be. “It’s just that he likes to rush into things, that’s it.”

_So he forced you into marriage_ , is what Carol wanted to say, but she figured she’d already prodded too much into Therese’s marital matters for one night.

“Let’s take it a little slower then,” Carol offered, and freed up one hand to take another sip of martini. For the confidence boost. “Therese Semco, yes? What is it that you do?”

Therese stared at Carol’s drink, looking rather unfocused. “Nothing important, really. I’m a pianist. I’m not the best, of course not, but I do simple shows. Richard says my photography is my best skill. I’ve never sold anything, ha. I mean. I haven’t even put together a portfolio, not yet…” Her speech had been gradually speeding up as time past. Carol’s silence seemed to get her to freeze. “Oh, I’m rambling.”

“No, that was interesting.” Carol’s immediate thoughts went to the grand in her home. Harge had been the only one to play it after Carol’s father died. They had neither the mind nor time to get the damn thing moved, and she wondered if maybe, just maybe, Therese would one day be playing a song for you. “I’ll hire you to play for me someday. And I’m sure you have a wonderful eye for art.”

“Maybe,” Therese replied, a giddy little grin curling her lips. “What about you, Ms. Aird—”

“Carol, darling.”

“Oh, um, sorry. Carol.” She made a face, as though the thought of not being able to use honorific titles was disrespectful. Carol repressed the urge to grin wider. “You must do something interesting, right?”

She laughed. “No, hardly. I’m an employee for a furniture store; I sell things. In other words, a commonplace job you’d find just about anywhere else in New York. There’s significantly less pianists with an affinity for photography.”

“Probably not,” Therese said, but giggled nonetheless. Carol wondered if a stranger making passes at you, a married woman, was an appropriate thing to be laughing about. Well, with her luck, nothing would be taken seriously.

Carol took a pause to look into the corner where Richard had lumbered off to. It looked like he was heading back to his table—looking much more pleased, assuming something like that was even possible in the first place. With _his_ ego…

Perhaps Carol was being unnecessarily bitter.

“Hey, what’s this?” Richard pulled into a third seat, and Carol turned to give him a polite smile. He already had some unnamed drink for himself, and slid something of similar make Therese’s way. She stared down at it, making it fairly obvious she wasn’t about to drink. “I leave for a minute, and Terry’s already making friends!” His boisterous attitude was annoying at best, and completely unbearable at the very worst. “Richard Semco, Therese’s husband. And you?”

“Carol Aird,” she supplied him, with a heedless wink. Formalities were a natural given. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Semco. Is this your first time here?”

Therese shifted uncomfortably, and Carol threw a semi-reassuring look her way.

“Yeah,” Richard chuckled. “Friend rec’d us the place, figured it’d be a great way to spend our first evening out as spouses.” The touch of venom in his voice didn’t go unnoticed, but Carol smiled as though she hadn’t caught it. Therese and Richard’s eyes made contact with each other for a hard moment, and she was the first to break away. He looked at Carol, just as joyous as he’d been before. _To save face,_ she thought.

“I take it that you’ve just moved in, yes? And you’ve never been to New York in the past?” She leaned in.

“I have,” Richard raised his hand. “Not Terry, though. To be honest, though, I’ve only visited once with Phil.” One bout of nervous laughter, and a slightly annoyed look was shot in his general direction, via Therese.

“I could show you around,” Carol offered.

“Shucks, Mrs. Aird.” _Miss Aird_ , but Carol won’t correct him, “That sounds like a grand offer, but I’ll be in my studio working on illustration for most of the week. A lil’ longer and a lil’ later than a regular work day, I’m afraid. Terry though…” They look at each other, and Therese offers up nothing but an indifferent—no, not indifferent, it was unsure, but Therese certainly cared—shrug.

“I should be free on Sunday, then?” Carol picked up her glass to take a drink, but upon realizing that there was nothing left, she instead settled for disinterestedly swirling around the backwash in her glass. “Of course, if you’d rather not, I’m more than happy to wait.”

“No,” Therese said. She sounded as though she needed a bit of convincing herself; Carol wondered, and felt. “Sunday is good.”

Sunday was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can probably tell i'm not used to writing characters that don't speak a lot because therese sounds rather flat. in any case, any and all comments are appreciated, and i thank you very dearly for taking a read! hopefully, more to come soon.


	2. rangefinding

Sunday was arguably not as good as drunk Carol had made it out to be.

It wasn’t like their schedules didn’t line up, or anything like that. But with a day to ponder the prospect of touring around this woman, of which she had only known for a collective thirty minutes— _at best_ —Carol found her anxiety ramped up unusually high. “Let’s see,” Carol mumbled into her coffee, the self-criticism just as bitter as her lukewarm beverage. “You’re a thirty-year-old woman getting anxious because you agreed to meet up with a woman who  _can’t_ be any older than twenty-five. What’s wrong with you?” The sigh was sharp, the noise that bounced around the room as Carol practically slammed the cup down even sharper.

Her phone was charging on the countertop, and Carol snatched it to take a quick glance through her contacts. Therese’s number sat somewhere in the middle. Carol thumbed over the keyboard absentmindedly. They had shared one text conversation since that night at Gertrude’s, and that had only been Therese asking if Carol had gotten home alright.

It wouldn’t hurt to remind Therese about today, of course. Or even give a gentle reminder that she totally didn’t have to do this at all, that if Therese was creeped out, then this whole thing could be called off.

 

[Carol Aird – 10:09 AM]: Hey Therese … Just wanted to ask if u were still interested in coming out w/ me today? :)

 

The message looked unthreatening, and it certainly didn’t give off the air of unease. Good enough for Carol, who promptly hit send. With no more time to second-guess herself, Carol carried her phone with her to slink back to her abandoned cup of coffee.

Her lament hadn’t lasted for all that long before Carol’s phone vibrated, with what could only be Therese’s response.

 

[Therese – 10:13 AM]: Oh, yes. Of course!

[Therese – 10:13 AM]: Were you planning to pick me up? I can send you my address. Actually, hold on…

[Therese – 10:14 AM]: _Click link to view._

 

Carol allowed herself a congratulatory sip of coffee, almost immediately reprimanding herself for thinking a damn sip of bean juice could be considered a reward in any fashion. Or that she even deserved a reward in the first place. Because what, she hadn’t been flat out rejected? Congratulations, Carol, you’ve accomplished nigh nothing. Well. If nothing else, she now felt considerably more awake than she had in the past ten minutes. And Therese’s apartment was pleasantly close to Carol’s own place that ( _hopefully_ , she prayed to whichever deity she had yet to piss off) traffic wouldn’t be much of an issue.

 

[Carol Aird – 10:15 AM]: Yes, I can pick u up from there :) How do you feel abt being picked up @ 12:00? If that isnt too early.

[Therese – 10:15 AM]: That will do wonderfully. I’ll meet you outside at 12. :)

 

Well, that appeared to be that. With just under two hours to spare, Carol supposed that she may as well stop lamenting over the world (in other words, herself) and its mysteries (in other words, her choices made in a high-end bar off the edge of Manhattan) and finish cleaning up. A sigh escaped her before she forced the final drops of coffee down.

After a good twenty minutes of fussing around with clothes, Carol took a quick glance at herself in the mirror. She looked decent, perhaps a little overdressed for the situation (it wasn’t as though Carol planned to take Therese to dinner, though it was a concept she didn’t mind entirely). It’d have to do for now because if Carol knew herself well she figured she’d get sucked into a thought that would cause her to show up late.

Go figure.

Carol had left the house ten minutes later than she planned. Seeing as how life had its ‘quirks’, otherwise known as a penchant for ruining her, she pulled up to Therese’s apartment nearly a half hour later than what she’d intended. Therese was leaning up against the wall of her apartment and staring contemplatively, almost contentedly into her phone.

“Hey Therese,” Carol called out, poking her head out the window. Therese looked up, smiled, and bounded towards her.

“I almost thought you were ditching me,” she admitted sheepishly. As though it would have been her fault for thinking that way. It was now Carol’s turn to offer up a sheepish smile.

“God, I’m sorry. Here, hop in.” Therese did, and began to do her seatbelt. Idly, without thinking too much of it, Carol took a cigarette out of her pocket and lit up. “Therese, you’ve eaten already, haven’t you?”

The seatbelt clicked into place, and Therese turned to look at Carol. “Oh, actually. I hadn’t, not quite yet. I only woke up the moment you texted me.”

“Would you like to?” Carol wasn’t going to be the one to take ‘no’ for an answer, not now. She had already started to drive, just as Therese hummed a note of affirmation.

Carol nodded in turn. Traffic was starting to pick up, but Carol found that with Therese by her side, she couldn’t have really cared how long it took to get there. The only thing she wished for was something to fill the silence, other than the background noise of a Sunday morning and a lazy tune playing on the radio. But what could Carol say? To talk about? She ground her cigarette butt into her ashtray and absentmindedly tapped a finger against her lips.

The two of them found a diner that Carol had never seen before in her life, and it felt right. Therese seemed pleased enough as they sat. “Have you done anything interesting since Friday?” Carol asked after a moment of silence.

“No, not me.” Therese pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m still getting settled. It’s been a while since I had to move, I forgot how… How it feels. I suppose I’ll have to go job hunting sooner rather than later…” Their eyes met, and Carol grinned.

“You’re not from New York, right?”

“I’m Czech. Meeting Richard was more chance than anything else, really. We just happened to be visiting Paris at the same time,” Therese mumbled, looking down into her lap. “And now I’m here.”

The waitress came to them wearing a smile oozing with superficial pleasantries. She wore the kind of smile that could only be held up with twelve shots of Botox and the weight of her sins. “What do you want to order?”

“Therese?”

“Oh. Um.” Therese fumbled to take a quick look at the menu, much to the waitress's irritation. “Eggs with bacon, er. Scrambled. With… With coffee. That’s it.” An awkwardly lopsided grin graced her features, and the waitress took the menus without a word.

Therese stared at her backside before she turned to make a face in Carol’s direction. Carol asked, “Your Richard is an illustrator, yes?” The interest she held for Mr. Semco was a slim nothing, but she needed to ask _something_.

“He wishes,” Therese said with an impassive shrug. “He’s not very good.” She paused, then sighed. “I suppose that makes me a bad wife, doesn’t it? Women are supposed to support their husbands.”

How Carol would have loved to say something against it, but since when did she have the right to speak? _Oh, Harge, it’s fine if you miss our anniversary for your corporate meeting. Rindy won’t miss you. New Years? It’s fine. I’m fine._ How she hated how amenable she’d been back in the day. Perhaps one day, Therese would think the same thoughts. Carol toyed around with more reassuring phrases in her mind. “I’m sure he loves you,” she settled for instead.

Therese snorted in response, as if to say ‘That’s all he ever says’. Harge had been like that too, once upon a time, and Carol found herself relating more and more to her plight. Arguably, that was not something she should have been doing.

“Anyways,” she continued, “What do you want to see? New York has lots to offer, although I admit that the charms start to wear off in the first week.”

Therese caught Carol’s grin, and she grinned back. “I don’t have a place in mind—I suppose I should have thought of that before I left the apartment, hm?”

“Well,” Carol spoke, just as the waitress turned round to set down the meal. A quick and polite thanks (one that had been acknowledged with nothing more than an uncaring groan), and Carol’s attention was back on her. “You do photography, right? I’m sure you could find something to photograph in New York. Weird things have been happening far too long and with far too little camera attention on it.”

She giggled, almost on the verge of spitting out pale yellow egg.

“We have museums, gardens, hell. You could probably take a picture of a crowded street with a last-generation camera and _still_ make it look good.”

“Oh, I’d like to see the gardens.” There had hardly been a pause between them. There was an unspoken thought as well; ‘I’d like to see all of it with you’.

“There’s a ton of gardens out there. Have a particular one in mind?”

Therese giggled again, and what a lovely sound it was. “Aren’t they all the same?”

So they went to the gardens. Plants and flowers, they seemed nothing more than niceties to Carol in the past. Therese must have regarded them as more or less the same, and yet Carol found herself enjoying a walk in the sun more than she should have

Carol kneeled down to inspect a patch of tulips, and she had only seen the light reflecting off the camera as she turned back around. “Oh gosh,” she grinned, raising her arms in a halfhearted attempt to conceal her face. “I didn’t know today was picture day.”

Therese paused for a moment, seemingly unsure if she was being toyed with or not. “I should have asked first.” She looked down at her camera. “Sorry, I won’t develop that—”

“Shh. Don’t worry about it,” Carol spoke, rising to her feet. “Show me the photo when you can, won’t you?” Therese nodded fervently.

They ended up taking a few more photos that day, some of which Carol posed for, but for the most part, Therese wanted to keep the photos candid. It was starting to grow into a habit, Carol peeking over her shoulder to see if there was a camera pointed in her direction.

“What kind of camera is that?” Carol asked, peering over Therese’s shoulder as she exchanged film. “I was under the impression that photographers didn’t use film anymore.”

Therese didn’t look up, “It’s a Canon IIF Rangefinder.”

“Which means?”

“Oh.” She paused, just for the slightest of moments. “It’s an old camera from the early 1950’s. Rangefinders are probably the best cameras out there for street photography—says an unnamed photography blogger, anyway. Film photography is something I’ve been doing for a few years now, I even learned how to develop my own film. Our new apartment has a dark room. The uh, place where you develop photos.”

“From the 1950’s, huh? How interesting.” Carol hummed and pulled away. “How’d you manage to get your hands on one of those?”

“A wedding gift from Richard’s father. He says his father used to be a photographer, and that I might have some use for this old thing.” Therese pushed the film into place and closed up the camera with a satisfying click. She waved the camera in front of Carol with the faint inklings of a smile. “Here, let’s try something.”

Therese shuffled over to Carol’s side, and held the camera up, facing them. “I haven’t tried taking a selfie with a rangefinder before. The settings are all manual, it might not even look good…”

“Take the shot,” Carol said, and Therese did. There was no click of the shutter, but she seemed to deem the photo as taken, and she let out a satisfied huff.

Turning back to Carol, Therese shoved the Canon back into her bag. “That’s that,” she said.

“When do you think your studio will be set up?”

“I don’t know, Wednesday at the very latest? Probably sooner, I just need to get the chemicals in some time.”

“Do you think I could come over sometime and see the place? I’d love to see the photo as it’s being developed, and I want to know more about what you do. If… If that’s alright, of course.”

Their gazes met, and for a moment, Therese looked like she’d been tossed out of some far-off corner of the universe, and that her landing had put her in a daze. That kind of distant look that said she was distracted by something, distracted maybe even by Carol. And she watched expectantly as Therese’s gaze shifted back into focus. “... Yes. I’d love that.”

Carol grinned. “You’re a delight, Therese Semco. You know, we should do this again sometime. Not the gardens thing, not immediately. We could go for lunch. Maybe you’d like the museums.”

“We could bring Richard along,” Therese added, as much as Carol hoped that she wouldn’t. And as soon as that thought entered her mind, Carol pushed it away. Those were the intimations of a feeling she had thought she was through and done with. Those were the intimations of a feeling that she was not going to allow herself to feel, not now.

“We could,” she said. How she wanted to say that she didn’t _want_ Richard there. But she only knew as much about Therese as one could in a day. To become so clingy now, what kind of grown woman did that? She couldn’t even begin to  _imply_ that Richard’s presence was unwanted. “Just let me know whenever you’re free.”

Therese must have caught the nuance of her expression. How could she not? Carol was nothing if not obvious. “I will,” she said finally, and looked out ahead of them. Into the sun that wasn’t quite setting, but almost there. “I should get going. Richard’s just as bad as a nanny when he’s worried.”

“We should get going, then.”

As Carol drove Therese back to her apartment, she found that she was deliberately stopping herself from taking the extra glance in Therese’s direction. For a reason she knew only vaguely, a reason that she preferred not to name.

Carol did look her way once when she sounded out a giggly little “Click!”. Therese was holding up the camera, wearing a look that promised nothing but more images to come. She couldn’t poker face for much longer, and Carol grinned.

She’d never really been comfortable with her photo being taken before.

For Therese? She could bear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which the author lives in a town that's literally a tenth the size of new york and you get to watch her suffer about it because she knows absolutely nothing about traffic.
> 
> some big thoughts i had while writing this: therese's character is surprisingly in-depth, as well as little bits of character arc that you don't notice until you reread or rewatch the media you're looking at. therese isn't very bold as a character, not until the end. there's just so many little nuances in her character, and writing this has made me learn to appreciate her more (pfft, as if i wasn't already in love with her as is. real talk: gay culture is wanting to smooch rooney mara). 
> 
> carol's also shown to be surprisingly anxious in the movie, but therese is just _awful_ at recognizing it. homegirl out here making doe eyes @ the way carol says her name that she can't even tell how nervous the poor woman is. it's kind of refreshing, tbh
> 
> the sheer amount of research i had to do on cameras (specifically on trying to figure out which cameras therese used in the film without thinking about the fact that i could have just googled it) was staggering. even then, i decided to go with a slightly different model of camera, mostly because the time it was released lol. but! that's enough rambling (and rambling it was indeed).
> 
> thank you for reading! criticisms and commentary are much appreciated!


	3. depth of field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somewhat of an early chapter because my access to my computer is starting to grow a lil tight :(
> 
> my copy of the price of salt came in and i finished rereading it for the second time since posting chapter two, and there's a surprising amount of detail i hadn't registered the first time. for example, carol wears green instead of red, dannie's the older brother, and therese.... REALLY doesn't like to answer questions. REALLY.
> 
> oh hey also abby's here. originally i had no plans to include her but then i remembered just how important their friendship is to me (something that came after rewatching the movie with a friend) so yeah here she is i Guess
> 
> in any case, i hope you enjoy reading, and i thank you very much for doing so!! comments and criticisms are, as always, super appreciated, even if i dont respond to all of them. ;; thanks again!!

“You know you’re fucked, right?”

Carol took in a drag of smoke, and sighed as she breathed out. “God, I _wish_.” The joke fell somewhat flat on Abby’s ears. It was a little unfair; Abby made seedy jokes like that all the time. “Oh, come on. I expected you to at least _pretend_ it was funny, Abigail.”

“I’m being serious here, Care-bear.” Carol made a face at the childhood nickname. Abby simply misinterpreted her offhanded glare. “Oh, don’t give me that look. The only way you could be deeper in shit is if you ended up fucking her. Wait, wait, I can do one better; if she liked you back.”

“I do _not_ like her, Abby. Not… Not like that. She’s cute, yeah, but so are half the women in New York. _You’re_ cute, but we’ve both moved past that.” Actually, Carol was pretty sure that _she_ was the only one who’s moved past it, but for decency’s sake, she’s never commented on it aloud.

Abby’s eyes rolled. “Do you talk about all cute girls as though they’re the second coming of Christ? Girl, I know you’re trying the whole ‘sad depressed ex-missus’ shit, but hell, you could have waited a little longer. Y’know, long enough to go gaga-eyed over someone who _isn’t_ married? Almost certainly straight?”

“Alright, alright. I get it. God.” Carol rubbed her temple with one hand, tapped ashes into her tray with the other. She watched with “I’ve only known her for half a week, isn’t that pathetic?”

“Aren’t you kinda pathetic yourself?” Abby’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “It’s alright, babe. You’re just on the tipping edge of the fence right now. With any luck, you’ll fall out of the shit pit.”

She sighed for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that week. “Do you think if I fell on her side, she’d catch me in her arms?”

“Carol…” Abby shook her head in disbelief and laughed. “I hope you fall flat on your ass.”

Despite herself, Carol found a smile inch upon her lips. It would only be Abby who could lift up her moods despite the shittiest of situations. The smile turned wide, and she seemed to study this look for a moment. “You’ve got a date with her today, right?”

“It’s not a date. And her husband’s joining us,” Carol shrugged. Abby raised a finger as though she were about to raise an excellent point. “Oh, shut your mouth, Abby. As though I was going to pull anything on our second meeting.”

There was a logical progression to this kind of thing, a progression that was cut off because Therese was married and because Carol was certainly not interested. Abby’s tried to predict Carol’s interests and flings for the past ten years, and seldom few have actually proceeded past anything but a distant attraction. Simply because Carol had been married. Even now that she wasn’t, she found herself to be content with her situation. No, romance was a nice thing to know and experience, but Carol would never want to do that, repeat any of her mistakes with Harge again.

“Ha, well,” Abby clicked her tongue and hoisted herself out of the seat. “You were gettin’ ready to leave, right? I’ll drive you.”

“You’re a blessing, Abby.” Carol closed her eyes and after a moment, darted up as well.

Along the way, Abby continued to poke and prod at her temperament in the way that only Abby could do. Carol laughed, but she was hyper aware of the fact that her answers were indirect. Was Abby aware of that too? No, she couldn’t be. She may have known Carol for more than anyone’s ever known her, but she didn’t look much further beyond the surface. Before her lamentation could last, Abby was already unlocking the doors.

“Here you are! Go get her, tiger.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

Carol grinned at Abby’s own smiling face, before waving her off. She checked her phone one last time, to make sure she had the right address (a silly thing to do, as though Carol hadn’t already memorized the address by heart). With only an indistinct feeling of certainty, she rung the door. A second later, a man opened up. It took a moment for recognition to light up his features, but Richard Semco seemed pleased enough to see her.

“Mrs. Aird!” Richard extended a happy hand Carol’s way, to which she took with a smile. “Therese didn’t tell me you’d be coming over.”

“Did she?”

“That must’ve been why she’s been cleaning the place so vigilantly. She told me about the blast you guys had on Sunday.” Richard turned his head to call out into the apartment. “Terry! Your lady friend’s here!”

Therese’s curious face poked out from behind the wall only a second later, and Carol felt herself smiling. Not without some form of caution—her previous conversation with Abby had yet to sink into the back of her mind. “Carol,” she greeted, walking up to them.

Her hair was tied up loosely behind her head, and Carol couldn’t help but think that it was a good look on her. There were flecks of paint speckled sparsely on her turtleneck. The mark of careless concentration. “You look like you’ve been busy.”

“Yes. I finished setting up the darkroom, actually! Here, come in.” Therese made a light gesture to urge Carol to come closer into her apartment. Richard stepped back accordingly, but there was a hostile look in his eyes. A look that held a distant challenge, one that looked over her and made Carol wonder if her eagerness was just as apparent as Abby claimed it to be.

No, he wouldn’t have been able to tell. What would he know anyways?

“Looks homely,” Carol commented. The place was a little dingy, more worn than an apartment should look, but an immaculate place wouldn’t be Therese. “It’s nice.”

Therese smiled breezily and she felt her heart lifted by the wind.

Richard trailed behind them. “Terry tells me you make a good model. That’s good—her photography has a sad lack of human touch to it.” Carol hummed disinterestedly to acknowledge him. “The photos look like they’ll turn out pretty well.”

“They’re also just practice, really,” said Therese with a hint of embarrassment to her tone. Richard seemed the type to boast about everything; his talent, his plans for the future, his wife. She wondered for a moment how much he liked to talk about Therese, how much could he ramble about her? And then she realized it hardly mattered.

“The darkroom’s in here,” Therese spoke, opening the door to a room. Carol peered inside for a brief moment before she stepped in. Giving herself a moment for her eyes to adjust revealed a wholly different world. Carol was reminded of a sort of dystopian universe. The room smelt of vinegar and a certain something else that she could hardly name. Therese’s face, amber in the light, looked expectant. She looked away in favor of studying the drying photos on the wall.

“These are nice.”

She had forgotten Richard’s presence up until he piped up from somewhere behind her, “Aren’t they? Therese is always so ridiculously modest with her work.”

Therese’s eyebrows raised only slightly. Despite the light, Carol could make out how her dimples flourished, and there was a sudden urge to run her hands over Therese’s cheek. What would she feel? How her muscles twinged with the inklings of a smile, every bump and dip of her skin. “It’s not modesty if they suck,” Therese joked, and Carol almost laughed with her.

 

The three went to lunch, somewhere close. A green tarp laced with gold _fwipped_ around in the wind for a fraction of a second, and then it laid still. The interior made the place look a little archaic, not the kind of place that had struck Carol as a place Richard would choose. She supposed that he wanted to impress her, a desire he felt without even thinking about it. If nothing else, it was quiet, even when nearly full. They sat in a booth. Richard tried to make small talk but despite Carol’s answers and chatters, her mind was elsewhere.

The waiter had only just set down the appetizers when Richard’s phone rang. Therese gave him a look of curious caution. “It’s Phil,” Richard said, almost pleadingly and stood up to take it.

Carol leaned up against her hand, and carefully picked up a piece of breaded cheese and stuck it into her mouth. “Huh, I wonder if everything’s alright,” she said, and Therese nodded absently, taking another piece of breaded cheese.

“We’d probably finish this before Richard comes back,” Therese commented, and Carol wondered if she could pick up the hints of bitterness in her tone. Perhaps she didn’t care at all; the disinterest, the look of ennui, they said volumes in those looks alone. What was she supposed to pick up from all of this?

“Do you mind?”

Therese said nothing, gazing directly into Carol’s eyes. And for a moment, Carol grew frustrated. It was unreasonable, she supposed. _What part of it is unreasonable_ , she wondered, to _expect that a question asked is answered?_ “Do you?”

“Hm,” Therese paused for a moment. Her mouth formed multiple shapes in the span of a second, before she shrugged. It was less effort than an actual answer. “What am I supposed to feel about it? It’s a thing that happens.”

Carol’s lips pursed and stretched into a thin line. “When you learn that you can refuse things you don’t like, then you’ll learn that you can change things you don’t like as well.” The conversation died there, because Therese said nothing else, and she herself didn’t feel much of a need to tie dead ends.

Therese stared past Carol’s shoulder; the same far-out look she held on Sunday. With a slight jolt, her gaze went to her lap, her chest, and she started picking at the bits of white paint. Perhaps she might have been embarrassed that she didn’t change before they left. Richard had been insistent that they leave at once, oddly so, because this place always filled up around this time. Despite the fact that it hadn’t.

She had been right about the appetizers. As Richard came back to them, he noticed the empty plate and gave a gasp of mock offense. “You didn’t save anything for me!” he complained, sliding back into his original seat. Carol shifted around with a slight feeling of unease.

“Sorry, they really were too good,” said Therese, and this struck Richard as unbelievably funny. He laughed, kissed at her cheek and Carol gazed away instinctively. A stray wind was blowing up leaves outside the restaurant.

Richard sighed and apologized as well. Phil had been talking about how his older brother was going to be going out with him, and how he wanted Therese and Richard to go to some party. The kind of thing that Carol, personally, saw as a little silly, but she wasn’t in any position to comment. Dannie was a physicist, but he’d been working as an online journalist before he started attending university. Phil spoke about how he might have been able to hook Therese up with some kind of job in photojournalism, assuming the interaction went well. “I can extend the invitation to you, if you’d like,” he said, and it took her a moment to realize that he was speaking to her. It didn’t take much thought for Carol to shake her head.

“No, it’s fine,” she said, staring at the cutlery laid out upon the table. “Not my kind of scene.”

The explanation seemed to do well enough for the two of them. Time couldn’t have passed any faster for Carol’s tastes, really. But once she got past the initial discomfort that came from a place she couldn’t exactly name, she found that she was enjoying herself. Even Richard’s presence had done nothing to put a damper on her mood (and she might have even realized that perhaps it was silly of her to want to exclude him in the first place). Her only regret was that it had ended far too soon.

“You can stop here,” Carol said, pointing out in a general direction. Therese was already back at their apartment, because Richard said she wanted a word with her, and that he’d be out shopping for a little bit after he dropped her off anyways. Therese, after a moment of hesitation, agreed that she’d rather be working. Carol was left feeling somewhat confused, but unperturbed.

“Hey, thanks,” he spoke. It wasn’t exactly what she had been expecting. Then again, she didn’t know what she had been thinking in the first place. “I mean… Therese hasn’t had any genuine friends in a long time. Not any friends that she’s met herself. She’s kind of flighty, you know? Even getting her to move up to New York with me was a huge issue. But she seems to like you, and I can really only hope that lasts.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Carol was speechless, funded mostly by the fact that there was really nothing she could say. She reached for a contrived answer, the polite answer. “It’s not a problem. I like Therese.”

“That’s good. Anyways, have a good one, Mrs. Aird!”

Carol tried to smile back as she stepped out of the vehicle. “You too, Richard.”

And yet, even as she spoke, there was a feeling in her chest. An array of complex emotions, many of which she couldn’t even begin to put a name to.


	4. aperture

The photo hung off the edge of the mirror back at the house, and Carol thought of it with a certain fondness.

Carol had been at Therese’s apartment a few times since the restaurant meeting; the last time they met together, she had walked Carol through the process of photo development. She could remember the look of distaste, maybe with added embarrassment on Therese’s face. “It’s not very good,” she stated. Carol felt as though there had been a few other things she wanted to pick apart, but Carol had loved the photo. It was a slight touch out of focus, and the camera had been held at an odd angle, but it gave her a sort of pleasure to look at. Perfectly imperfect, despite Therese’s frets and qualms.

Rindy had seemed to like the photo as well. She didn’t really care about the other woman in the photo (a decidedly good thing, because Carol wouldn’t have known how to speak about Therese in the presence of her own child), but had instead deemed it a good photo because “mommy looks pleased”. The implication that Carol was carrying herself more depressedly than she was in the past was not exactly an implication she cared much for. Then again, Rindy was only but a child, and children weren’t exactly tainted by the complications of social interaction.

The child sat patiently, swinging her feet side to side in time to the music. Harge had bought her the CD to present to her on a date, and as much as their animosity towards each other ruined any sort of chance they had at reconciliation, she had to admit that his taste in music was damned good.

This song in particular had been something that Carol listened to often, but she had never exactly taken the time to listen to the finer details of the song, or even really analyze the lyrics. A breezy piano hammered out an interlude that reminded Carol of puddled rain.

_I really like the differences you bring when you arrive… You didn’t tell your wife you’re here, and baby, that’s alright…_

Carol’s train of thought stopped to focus on the lyrics. The song had never carried any sort of connotation to her before, and before she could stop herself, a certain Therese popped into her mind. Lord, how she despised herself for it. She hadn’t noticed how tight her grip had been around the steering wheel until a thread of pain shot through her knuckle.

_Tell me how long until you say you love me… Tell me how long until you say you’re mine… Call me morning, noon or night, I’ll make it rain or shine…_

A breath was sucked in through her teeth. Rindy had started humming the melody, bobbing her head gently to the beat. An endearing sight, truly, but it was a little dampened by Carol’s own stupid thoughts and her inability to control them. A phrase from maybe a couple of years ago struck her suddenly, with the weight of a semi. _It’s basically reverse psychology; the more you try to convince yourself you’re not into this thing, the more you get into it._

It might have been proving true now. Carol changed the song the moment it started delving into words about affairs. Rindy made a noise of protest for only a fraction of a second before the next song started playing.

They stopped at the Aird residence. Harge’s mother stepped out of the house the moment she had seen Carol’s vehicle pull up to the front. Holding back a grimace, she turned down the music with one hand and rolled down the windows with another. “Carol,” she said with what might have been distaste. Carol smiled nervously.

“Jennifer,” she greeted in turn. It was a hardly disguised secret that Jennifer had never exactly been a fan of her. For the most picky reasons, really. Owning a piano but never caring to play it and never playing with a bridge. How she wore her hair, how she dressed, her occupation and everything inbetween. While it annoyed her at times, it more or less just made her uneasy.

“Rindy’s with you?”

“Yes, of course, she’s in back.”

“Let her out, then.” Jennifer paused for a moment, then relented. “Harge said he wanted to see you. He’s waiting in the kitchen.”

Despite the fact that her tone left very little room for discussion, if any, Carol had no desire to see Harge. “He can call me if he wants to see me that badly.” That aspect of Carol’s personality too, the flightiness, was another reason that Jennifer didn’t like her.

“He’d _really_ like to see you.”

The look shared between the two of them was tense and stormy. Carol realized, only at that moment that there wasn’t anything substantial stopping her from letting Rindy out and then just booking it. Jennifer might forget about this in a week (the conviction sounded as weak as a dying lighter), and then Carol could pick up Rindy with only the tiniest pricks of anxiety in her gut. Yet Jennifer had a way of making it seem like she could only do things one way: hers.

“... Fine,” Carol said finally. One day she’d learn to say no.

Rindy had been the first to run to Harge. He nearly dropped the cup of coffee he’d been rolling around idly. He might have been looking at business reports, or maybe it was just an article or printed email. “How’s my little girl?” he asked with a smile, pulling Rindy closer to him. Carol leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.

“I’m good,” Rindy replied cheerily, snuggling into his sleeve. “Mommy got me ice cream. Cheesecake flavoured.”

Harge’s smile widened, perhaps at the slur in Rindy’s voice. She had yet to learn how to pronounce her L’s properly and Carol had been wrong in thinking that Harge would be annoyed with that. Carol had been wrong about Harge in general, she supposed.

“How’s my other girl?” He asked, turning to look up at her.

Carol’s breath hitched.

“Don’t. Don’t say that,” she whispered softly, as though Rindy couldn’t hear her, if it would mean the end of the world. _I’m not your girl. I was never your woman. Yours._ Then, more loudly, “Your mother said you wanted to speak to me.” _So get on with it_ , she’d have liked to add, but there was something of a vulnerability in Harge’s expression. And then she began to remember the things she’d said behind his back, to other people, to herself. _He’s incapable of love, except for maybe Rindy._ That was not the look of the man Carol had wed for ten years.

She was feeling oddly compassionate.

“Yes, well…” His voice trailed off, and his thumbs danced with each other in Rindy’s lap. “Sy Harrison’s wife. Jeanette? Jeanette. She’s holding a party and she asked me to invite you. On the Thursday. Do with that what you will.”

Carol searched her mind for an excuse. Parties with Harge were never parties for her, they were parties where she was nothing more than the pretty mink coat draped around his arm, the eye candy. His validation that he had made it in life, that he had everything other people wanted and desired. “I have plans,” she settled for simply.

“You can’t reschedule?” Was that the tiny bits of desperation bleeding into his voice? Carol resolved to narrow her eyes; _You instigated this._ “Carol… Please.”

It might have been the softness of his voice, the pleading in his eyes. It might have just been that he simply wasn’t yelling at her, and that despite the fact she knew she was being used again, they knew. They both knew that she was done for.

She wasn’t getting any better at saying no. But. “Could you call Jeanette and ask if I’m allowed to bring a friend?”

“Abby?” She despised the venom in his voice. Perhaps he might not have seen it, but it was there, lingering in his words, coiled and swirling like a snake ready to pounce. Carol felt self-conscious suddenly, as though there was something wrong with her for wanting to remain friends.

“No,” Carol replied. She had not told Harge of Therese, and she would not tell him of her. The things he’d say came to mind and she hated that she was afraid. “You haven’t met her before.” Would Therese like Harge? No, she wouldn’t. He was all business, all bark, a threatening and stormy man. She might think him dull. Unlike Therese, who could light up the room simply by existing.

A moment of silence passed between them. Rindy inched out of Harge’s arms and ran up to her room.

“That’s not all you wanted.”

“No, it isn’t.” Harge agreed. “But I think we can talk about it another time. When we’re both ready for it.” Carol nodded. The air was suffocating, and she didn’t _want_ to be in this stuffy room with a man she didn’t like. She hardly thought she’d ever be ready.

 

She hadn’t really been sure that Therese would want to go to the party in the first place. Yet, here she was, actual angel incarnate. “Bless you,” Carol said hurriedly, embracing Therese without much of a second thought. In the back of her mind, she registered the way Therese stiffened and awkwardly tried to return, but Carol’s head was spinning. “Bless you, Therese.”

“Oh, it sounded fun,” Therese tried to explain, choked up, but Carol supposed that she hadn’t really wanted to do this in the first place. “Your ex-husband is named Harge, right?”

“Yes,” Carol said, slowing down the pace. They were almost at Jeanette’s now. She had suggested that they walk to the place, because they had the time and the weather was decent. Though in actuality, she wouldn’t mind being late, she wouldn’t mind simply ditching, and she especially wouldn’t mind spending all that lost time with Therese.

“I can stay by your side the whole night. If… If that’s what you want, of course.” She sounded unsure, as though there was a sort of thing she wasn’t supposed to impose on Carol.

“Please,” she responded, sounding far more anxious than what she wanted to let on. She forced out a laugh. “I was under the impression that you would, actually.”

Jeanette greeted the two of them with a warm smile and a European greeting Carol’s way. “Harge told me you might show up,” she said pleasantly, before her eyes settled on Therese. “She’s a friend of yours, Carol?”

“Yes,” Carol responded, gesturing to the woman beside her. “Jeanette, this is Therese. Therese? Jeanette.” Jeanette seemed to take to Therese quite well, and she ushered them on while babbling about something like desserts. They slipped away as the next wave of guests were coming in, sharing a look of vague amusement.

As soon as the two were out of earshot, Therese leaned over to Carol. “She’s an energetic character, isn’t she?”

Harge was waiting for them—for Carol in the living room. Amongst the hustle and bustle of dancing couples, his eyes sought her out. Dimly aware of Therese’s fingers ghosting the sleeve of her dress, she nodded to nothing. “That’s him, over there.”

Therese had nothing to say, but Harge certainly did. He walked towards them slowly with an air of resignation, an attempt to seem courteous. “Carol, you’re here.” He attempted the same greeting as Jeanette, only Carol knew he’d be kissing more than the air next to her cheek, and she drew away.

“This is Therese Semco,” she said good-naturedly, waving an arm in Therese’s general direction. “Therese, this is Hargess Aird.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Therese, extending a hand for Harge to take. He stared at it with a sort of distaste before her hand was lowered, embarrassed.

Carol cleared her throat. “Jeanette mentioned sweets, at the door. Therese and I wanted to grab something, before they’re all gone.”

Harge let them leave, and she was sure that even Therese could feel the disappointment that hung around him. He had wanted to see Carol alone, he wanted… He wanted Carol. “He’s a controlling man,” she said out loud, half to Therese and half to the air. “The hypocrisy is baffling.”

“Hypocrisy?” Therese mirrored before she stuck a forkful of sponge cake into her mouth.

Carol sighed. She needed a drink _and_ a cigarette, but she’d left her purse in the car and she didn’t have a mind to go back for it. She didn’t want to ask Therese either. She’d have to settle for the whiskey. “You know? He thinks I might change my mind about the divorce someday. God, if only I had the ability to; Rindy would be so much better off for it.” It occurred to her that she hadn’t really mentioned Rindy to Therese. “We had a child,” she explained hurriedly. “She gets bounced between the two of us. It’s a hassle.”

“I can imagine,” Therese mumbled behind another bite of cake.

Carol looked to her. It very much could have been the alcohol talking, as it had that first night at the bar. “You’re stunning in that dress, Therese. You clean up incredibly well.” Was Therese aware of that? Aware of how her voice hung in the air, deep and wanting something that could never really be promised. She could have added that Richard was lucky, and a lucky man he was, but to compromise a friendship so early? She was a little tipsy, but not stupid.

Therese met her gaze nervously, as though she was trying to hide behind the porcelain plate and the yellow pastry atop of it. There was a coveted thankfulness in her eyes, but Carol’s eyes were roaming again.

“How’s the cake taste?” Carol decided to ask, shifting gears. Maybe she made Therese uncomfortable, she was overstepping boundaries. Therese seemed to be a guilt-driven person, and undoubtedly the idea that she was only sticking around with Carol because she was playing the role of distressed and bored housewife all too well was a possibility. A sobering, disquieting one.

The fork, another piece of cake hanging off it was waved around Carol’s lips. “Try it for yourself?” The statement was bold, especially considering who it was coming from. She smiled feeling giddy and goofy, and wrapped her lips around it. The silly atmosphere was lost immediately and instead filled with something heavier. Therese’s lips were parted just a bit, Carol took in the flavour of the cake.

“Mmm.” Carol pulled back, giving a parting lick to the fork, testing her luck. Therese looked away nervously, gaze flicking anywhere, everywhere. An impish little grin came to her lips, unbidden.

_The alcohol, definitely the alcohol._

“You should get a new fork,” she said, and propped an elbow up on the table.

“It’s fine.”

“Oh?”

To prove her point, or perhaps to try and fluster Carol, Therese scooped a particularly large portion of the cake into her mouth. Carol snorted in a halfhearted attempt to hold back a laugh; the poor thing looked ridiculous.

Harge hadn’t bothered them for the rest of the party, but Carol’s eyes did nervously peer around to look at him, to make sure that he wasn’t coming up. The topic of the discussion earlier that week came to mind, but Therese by her side kept those worries in a much warmer, much further place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another early chapter, not because i dont have access to the computer but because i finished it early and have very little impulse control. lol whoops
> 
> the song that plays in carol's vehicle is caro emerald's "tell me how long", a very heterosexual song but also the same song that inspired this fic in part. tbh i have a bunch of ideas for fics that could easily be represented by the entirety of caro emerald's discography. in any case.
> 
> harge's character is weird. i do not like this stinky little man. >:(
> 
> if you'd like to reach me, my tumblr is @shomarus/@counterexistence and my twitter is @impartiens, but be warned if u do talk to me i literally will not shut up about carol. its just How That Works


	5. exposure

Harge hadn’t said a damn word to her since the damn party, and Carol was getting _damned_ tired of waiting around with nothing better to do but leaf through books she didn’t care to read.

The compassion she’d felt for him the day he—or more accurately, his mother—called her up had essentially dried up. It had eaten at her, and now Carol felt nothing more than worried. Harge didn’t exactly have any power over her, he never had. Carol’s worry stemmed more from the fact that she still had the capacity to worry about Harge in the first place.

Maybe his master scheme was just to make her worry.

Abby had said as much when she’d described those events to her following the party. Then again, and to be fair, she had _also_ wolf whistled at Carol and winked in a rather concerning fashion when she brought up Therese. Carol loved Abby, would probably willingly lay her life down for her if Abby had the mind to allow her to. Yet she was _extremely_ unsubtle in everything she did and Carol might have died of mortification on the spot.

“I’m in your corner, babe,” Abby said with a grin. Carol lightly slapped at her own cheek repeatedly, as though that might have gotten rid of some of the heat.

“Okay, cool, can we go back to talking about Harge now?”

Abby cooed, “D’aww, lookit her. Carol Aird, woman of ice, and now she’s all flustered.”

“I’m not made of ice, you _absolute_ nitwit.”

“Not around me, you’re not,” she replied, and smiled. “Anyways, you want my advice on Harge? Just ignore the shit out of him. If he wants to do some kind of legal bullshit with Rindy and whatnot, you’ll hear it through your lawyer.” Carol opened her mouth to rebuke, but Abby raised a finger. “Ah-ah. Look, his _mother_ had to send you in, babe. Sounds to me like the sad old sap’s gonna ask for your hand back in marriage. And I mean, hey, do whatever you want, but I know Harge is kind of a… How you say? Piece of shit.”

Funnily enough, Carol found that hard to dispute. Perhaps her feelings on the matter weren’t exactly as strong as Abby’s. No, they definitely weren’t. She still didn’t _like_ him, and she couldn’t decide if that stemmed from his controlling demeanor, his anger management issues or simply how much of a drag he was.

“If he calls, I’ll let you know every detail. Or, well, I suppose he might try to talk to me again when I pick Rindy up.” Admittedly, she wasn’t looking forward to it. “It isn’t doing me much good to stress out about it; I’ll have a head full of grey hairs before I turn forty.”

Abby simply laughed along. “You can handle it.”

 

Carol received a call at eleven o’clock, and she’d been reluctant to answer, lest Harge was the one calling. For a moment, she considered feigning sleep, that she might be able to put off the conversation for just another day. No, she couldn’t do that.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” came the sound of Therese’s voice. Although it was somewhat of a welcome surprise, Carol was more off-put by Therese’s tone than anything else. It could have been the crack and static of the phone itself, but there might have been a hint of dried tears in the croak of her voice. “I hope I didn’t wake you up. Oh, I must have, I’m sorry.”

Carol hadn’t been doing anything before the call, not anything significant. Nothing that was deemed more important than this, anyways (and briefly, Carol wondered just when it was that Therese had bounced up to the top of her priority list). “Shh, you’re golden, darling. What’s the matter?”

The line was silent long enough for Carol to wonder if Therese had hung up, or if she’d just imagined the whole thing. Her voice was soft, unsure. “It’s not… I don’t think I can talk about it right now… It’s too much of me to ask, but I don’t know who else to call. Could you pick me up at my apartment? And… And don’t say yes if you can’t. I don’t want—”

“I’ll be there,” came Carol’s response, almost immediately. There was a sort of slow-starting fear inside of her. A million thoughts raced through her mind in an instant and not all of them were entirely good. “Don’t worry about it. You can hold out on your own until I get there?”

“Yes,” Therese said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

She was standing at the edge of the curb when Carol got there. Therese wasn’t paying attention to the road, instead looking off to some insignificant detail in the distance. She looked gloomy yet so beautiful in the light of the city, but was there ever really a moment where Therese wasn’t beautiful?

“Thanks again,” she said quietly, slumping into the passenger seat of Carol’s car. Her eyes remained closed for just a moment more, before they fluttered open. Carol caught the little droplets of tears in her lashes and the shiny surface of her cheeks did nothing for her confidence. “I know it’s selfish, but this really means a lot to me.”

“It’s the least I could do, especially after you pulled some serious strings for that party,” Carol said in what she tried to make sound reassuring, but it seemed to fall short. Therese said nothing, so she tried to pick up the dead ends of conversation. “Why don’t we grab a midnight snack, then you can tell me what’s troubling you?”

“It’s Richard, and it’s so _stupid_ ,” said Therese, voice heavy with tears that threatened to snake back to her. Carol tried to catch her gaze, but Therese stared furiously into her lap. The silence between them only grew bigger and bigger, so Carol started the drive.

“Take as much time as you need, darling.”

They pulled up to a McDonalds (perhaps a little silly in this situation, but silliness was good). Carol passed Therese a tissue to wipe her eyes with and after a moment of tentativeness, gently rubbed at her shoulder. “Here, what do you want to eat?”

“… I don’t know. Are you hungry?”

“Not very. I imagine I’ll just take nuggets.”

“Oh, um. I’ll have some as well, I guess. You don’t strike me as the kind of woman to settle for McD’s, you know? I don’t mean for that to be offensive, no, you’re just…” Therese scrunched her nose up in thought.

If Carol were anyone else, she might have been hurt, but in all fairness, when was the last time she’d worn pants out in public? And—alright, the coat was overdoing it a little as well. The way she wore her hair, even the style of dress screamed both anachronistic and _very_ rich.

The brown paper bag was passed to them through the window. Carol thanked the worker and then started the drive back home. Therese was starting to look a little less sullen now, which was good. But Carol still didn’t know what was plaguing her, and now concern was starting to lead out with morbid curiosity. Therese ate without saying much. Carol played something nameless on the radio.

It was nice.

And then Therese broke down again, just as Carol closed the door to her house behind them. “This isn’t _like_ me,” she explained in a half-sob, as though she were trying to explain it to herself just as much as she was trying to explain it to Carol. “I don’t _cry,_ I’m not a crier.”

“We’re all criers,” Carol whispered, and without a second thought, pulled Therese into a hug. Therese didn’t tense up, but relaxed instead. “Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

Therese explained; the painting gig Richard had been hooked up with didn’t go so well, and he wanted to go on a date with her in order to make up for it. As though it could. And then he got mad, she got mad, things escalated far beyond what she expected or even desired. “He’s so sweet, normally. But I just… I don’t know what it is. I don’t like it when he tries to get me to do things with him, and I know it’s because he expects me to be the perfect wife when I _can’t_ be the perfect… The perfect anything. I’m not. I never thought he’d have the guts to say anything like that to me, to call me such _vile_ things. He’s so kind, Carol.”

And Carol let her blubber on and on until the tears stopped, until Therese pulled away with whatever reluctance there might have been. She didn’t have the heart to tell Therese that perhaps she was being insensitive, that perhaps there was something more she could have done.

She let out a breath. “I think that… That overall, I’m stressed. Job hunting, moving here, everything’s taken a toll on me.” Therese sniffled. “I still haven’t been able to find a job, and the problems with Richard... Oh, Carol, I don’t mean to complain.”

“Shh,” Carol took Therese’s hand. It was a welcome change, the contrast from Therese’s normally silent and resigned behaviour. The circumstances under which they were discovered were arguably not as welcome. “You’d best stay the night, I’m sure you’re tired. Does he know you’re with me now?”

“No.”

“You should call him, so he doesn’t worry.”

Therese’s laugh was just the slightest bit bitter, and it pained Carol to hear that. For two very distinct, very wrong reasons. “I don’t want to. I hardly think he’d care.”

“In the morning, then.”

Carol found that she wasn’t as hungry as she thought she was, and pushed the majority of her food Therese’s way. “I don’t have the guest room set up,” she admitted, smoothing down the tablecloth. Carol hardly ever had guests stay the night, and she ended up using the room for storage. “And I don’t suppose you’re small enough to fit in Rindy’s bed.”

“I’ll take the couch,” Therese offered.

“Well, I don’t suppose there’s any real reason for either of us to take the couch, is there?” The sirens blaring in her head screaming ‘don’t, she’s married you idiot!’ didn’t do much to stop Carol from being utterly and completely selfish. “The bed’s big enough for two, hell. Three if you squint real hard.”

Therese paused. Carol thought for a moment that she’d fucked up, that she’d come on too strong, and that right now Therese would demand to be taken home immediately. “You’re sure? I don’t want to burden you.”

“It’s fine.”

“Sure.” Therese took in a shaky breath. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

“We might be close to the same size…”

Carol showed Therese the bathroom. Now that the initial teariness had worn off, she looked more tired than anything. Carol pitied the poor thing. While she was taking a shower, Carol snuck off to find some sort of appropriate wear for her. She opted for an old oversized shirt and ill-fitting slacks, likely back from the days when she decided her room needed a change of colour; much to Harge’s distaste and Abby’s amusement.

“You find the place alright?” Carol asked, deciding not to look up from the book she’d picked up in waiting. She heard Therese shuffle around the room before she plunked down next to her with hesitation.

Therese yawned and it was then that she decided to put the book away, just on the nightstand. She didn’t feel like getting up, not with Therese right there next to her. “Go to sleep, sunshine. It’s awfully late.”

The sleepy little smile that graced Therese’s lips made her heart swell, and she wouldn’t even bother to deny that one. “I like it when you call me things.” Then, more boldly, “I like you.”

Carol paused, a familiar feeling of which she hated swirling in her chest. The smile was unconscious. The sirens were growing louder and louder, increasingly so. What did that mean? Was there even any room to misinterpret? She clicked her tongue, almost chidingly. “Oh, Therese. Get some rest, I’ll take you home at noon, so sleep in as much as you’d like.”

“Thank you,” Therese said, pulling away for a moment, but then pausing. The words were there, the words that Carol desired to hear from her. Words like, “He’s never treated me this way,” “Are you really so pleased to have me here like this?” or even just a simple murmur of affection. She crawled under the covers, and Carol decided to follow suit.

“Goodnight, Therese.”

“Night,” Therese mumbled back, pleased. Carol felt her inch ever closer. Try as she might to sleep now, she hardly thought that she’d be able to. Not like this, and it wasn’t like she wanted to sleep in the first place. No, she thought, if she could stay like this, then she’d be happy to never sleep again. She breathed out, content, before something else popped into her head.

She hated it when Abigail was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternatively titled "carol is a gay disaster"
> 
> i dont really have as much commentary on writing this chapter other than i tried to power through the whole thing in a single night and the entire experience was basically me checking the word count every 15 minutes and complaining about how it wasnt getting any bigger because i was binging caro emerald live concerts in the middle
> 
> thank you for reading!! the amount of support on this has been staggering and i appreciate it so much <3


	6. image stabilization

Carol awoke to the smell of bacon in the air and a tentative song being played on the piano.

She laid in her bed for a moment, trying to recall the previous night’s events, and remembered Therese. The clock on her nightstand said it was a quarter to twelve, and Carol wondered just when it was that she had waken up. Enough time to find her way into the kitchen and to mess around on the piano. Carol felt the slightest bit annoyed—at herself. She rolled out of bed and put on a robe. Therese was the guest here, and Carol simply wanted to please.

Breakfast was laid out on the counter. Therese was playing stray notes on the piano, quietly, as though she was afraid of waking her up. Carol noticed that both plates were untouched, and Therese hadn’t noticed her until she heard the scuffle of slippers on tiled floor. “And here I was, wanting to take you out to breakfast.”

Therese’s head snapped to Carol, looking immediately apologetic. “Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t have…”

“No, it’s nice. I like that.” Carol picked up both plates and placed them on the table. A question stirred in her mind. “May I have a concert?”

“Ah. I haven’t practiced since we got into New York, so I don’t know if you’d even like to hear me as I am now…” Therese wasn’t looking at her, but Carol tried to raise a look of sympathy anyways.

“What you were playing earlier was nice. What song was that?”

She shrugged, almost sheepishly. “Bach’s Aria in G Major. It’s kind of a pretentious piece, isn’t it? The touch is so precise, but then again, I suppose most musicians are picky with how they write their music…” Therese met Carol’s gaze. “I used to play a lot of classical pieces, but I think I like playing songs from the romantic era of music more. Everything can be pulled apart, the rules aren’t so strict; in fact, the rule is to slow, feel every inch of the music… Some may disagree. I guess this sounds like incoherent theory jargon to you, does it?”

It wasn’t as deep as Therese made it seem. But Carol adored her and how she could wax poetic about the smallest of passions. “A little. I don’t really play, but I’ve read one or two things. And I _love_ to listen.”

“Then listen to this,” Therese said, and took a deep breath. Carol sat down and waited expectantly. The song sounded familiar, a series of chords played out softly. She finished with a lift, looking over to Carol for any hint of approval, praise. Anything.

Really, she was blown away.

It wasn’t that Therese was a perfect player. She said it herself; she wasn’t a first-class pianist. No, but there was something in the air, an atmosphere made her feel like she wasn’t living in real-time, and Therese’s playing was the catalyst. “That was beautiful.”

Carol was starting to grow spoiled by Therese’s smile. The two of them ate for a while, and Carol asked questions—mostly about the piano, about her musical experience. Therese’s keyboard wasn’t going to come in until next week, so she wouldn’t be able to do any shows, but she’d memorized a great deal. Her memory was impeccable, especially when she didn’t expect it, she said.

“Have you ever worked on any of your own songs?”

Therese dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, and hummed. “I have, actually. Do you want to hear what I have so far? You’ll have been the first to hear it.”

“My! The first? I think I will!”

She sat back down at the piano, and played another set of chords that rang out in the house, dissonant, crisp. The song picked up from there, between rapid sixteenths and octave jumps. Carol closed her eyes and let the sound wash over her. A little repetitive in parts, but it worked out nicely. Therese stopped halfway through. “And uh, everything after this part isn’t quite finished yet. I’m working on it though.”

Carol clapped dramatically. “Bravo!” she called out, and Therese gave a flustered smile, shifting around the piano bench. “What’s it called?”

“Oh. No, it’s still a work in progress, so I didn’t think… Well, I don’t have a name in mind, I guess.” She shrugged, like everything she’d said in the past hour meant nothing. “It’s my first piece, so I don’t want to give it a name to grow attached to until I think it’s perfect.”

Therese played one more song for Carol; a pop song that she’d heard on the radio a few times. Carol smiled—this was a song Rindy loved, and she sang alongside the piano. She was horribly off-tune, she hardly knew the lyrics in the first place, and said as much before Therese began to play, but she didn’t seem to mind. They finished in giggles and smiles, before the reality of which they were living in dawned upon Carol.

“I guess Richard would like to know where you are now?”

“Oh, let him imagine.” Carol struck a nerve, as it seemed. Gone was the light atmosphere from mere seconds ago, and here laid the sullen little girl who seemed resentful and sad all the same.

“I’d have to take you home eventually, and I’d hardly like to be accused of a kidnapping.”

“I’m an adult, Carol,” Therese said with a sudden bitterness that caused her to pause. This was the Therese who came to lunch with her and Richard. The bite of her tone wasn’t lost at all. “Though I guess Richard doesn’t see me that way. Frankly, I’m not in the mood to deal with him now. I’d rather stay with you instead.”

“I wonder what it is he said to you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Carol opened her mouth to argue, but closed it. People didn’t want to hear solutions when they presented an emotional problem. She figured as much last night. No, they wanted sympathy. Why would you offer a solution, when you can offer the short-term solution of validation and affection? When the solution and the gratification that resulted wasn’t instant? No, people didn’t want that. Yet, why would Carol play along with a half-baked excuse like that? She started up again. She even tried her damndest not to sound annoyed. “You can at least tell him you’re hanging out with me for the day, Therese.” Therese was stubborn, but enough prying and coaxing would do well enough. “It’s better to do that, lest he gets mad at you out of misplaced concern.”

The way Therese balled up her fists and uncurled them doesn’t go unnoticed. She repeated the action once or twice. “Fine. I’ll call.” Carol wondered if she wanted to add an aggressive little ‘have it your way’, but she knew that Therese wasn’t like that. She handed the phone off to Therese and picked up the dishes off to the sink. She heard bits and pieces of conversation between the rush of water and the clink of porcelain. Things like “Richard, please,” and “I’m just out for a day,” and even “You’re being dramatic!” were muttered by Therese, quiet and harsh. Completely unlike her, who was complacent and soft, or perhaps just timid. What does one think in that kind of situation? Carol wiped her hands off with a towel. It was pointless, to try to change things that were out of your own control.

She was done talking to Richard by the time Carol came back into the main room, looking just a little bit angry. “Well, he knows. He’s not terribly happy about it.”

Carol suggested that the two of them simply lay back at home rather than find something fancy and extravagant to do. Therese was quite content to do that, and they talked. She spoke about the kinds of people she met at her workplace, a newlywed couple in their mid-thirties who went shopping for their new apartment, a woman looking to donate a few pieces of furniture that belonged to her son who recently took up a college residence. “There’s this one woman, a Mrs. French who asks for the weirdest pieces, and I absolutely adore her. Who asks for a purple leather couch? And furniture dyed in purple? I like it, it’s different. We have tea together sometimes.”

“Huh,” Therese said, though she did not look particularly amused.

“You may like to join us sometime. Oh, I know you wouldn’t much like it, so maybe not.”

Then Carol asked Therese about her photography. She spoke about how she’d been given a toy camera as a young girl, a gift from her mother. Although she’d never liked her mother, she’d liked the camera, and so had her father. Her father was a lawyer, one who had secretly dreamt of being a painter, and he indulged Therese in her own artistic pursuits. “I’d take a picture with my little camera, and then he’d paint a still life out of the photograph. Oh, but he was never really good at anything he did, though he did everything.” Her voice was fond with memory, something that disappeared when she spoke of her mother. “I don’t think she quite cared for either of us. But what does it matter anyways?”

And it didn’t matter, not at all.

Struck with a sudden thought, Therese smiled coyly. “I saw you hung the photo from the gardens up in your room. I didn’t think you liked it that much.”

“Actually, you were the one who didn’t like it,” Carol pointed, her smile more or less the same. “It’s not a perfect image compositionally, but it has some charm on its own, don’t you think?”

Therese didn’t say anything more, instead smiling up fondly at Carol. Then she asked about Harge, and Carol said the same thing that she’d told Abby, that he hasn’t spoken a word to her since that night.

“Good,” she muttered, and made a face. “This might sound out of place, but you could have had anyone you wanted, and yet Harge…”

Carol smiled and shook her head. “I married because that’s what everyone was doing in their twenties. Didn’t you know? It’s hip to marry men you only feel a passing attraction to.” The tone was joking, but it wasn’t very far from the truth, and Therese knew that. “Besides, I could have asked you the same thing about Richard. Oh, but he’s a doting man, and I’m sure he loves you dearly. I just wonder if he’s cut out for the whole marriage thing.”

“Oh, please.” Therese grimaced, and Carol guessed that she hadn’t said the right thing. That was kind of an issue, wasn’t it? Carol speaking her mind without thinking of how it might offend at first. “He’s a nice man.”

“Is that everything?” And yet she couldn’t stop.

“Well… We both paint, sometimes.”

Carol rolled her eyes. “And you can talk about it sometimes. But that’s not enough to build a relationship off of.” After a moment passed, she knew. Therese must have known it as well, that the love she showed for Richard seemed flimsy and shallow. She had never spoken to Carol about Richard in a way that seemed anything other than cautious and tired.

“Isn’t it possible to love someone for no reason other than the simple fact that you do?”

Yes, Carol thought. She was a living example of that fact.

 

Carol drove up to the apartment, and turned to smile at Therese. “There you are,” she said grandly, slapping her hand down on the steering wheel for emphasis. “All the luck with Richard.” Therese had been smiling up until that point, though it was faltering now.

‘Horribly underprepared’ was quite the understatement.

It’d been a slow-start, with something like reluctance and hesitation. Instead of Therese leaning away, getting out of the car, she leaned _toward_ Carol. And she _sat_ there, confused. She didn’t register the kiss until it was actually happening, and for a few blissful moments, there was nothing wrong with it. She even kissed back, until Therese pulled away and Carol caught the flash off her ring finger.

Right. Keep it cool, Carol. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._

“I suppose Richard wouldn’t have been very happy to find out about that, now would he?” It wasn’t much use, trying to play off the whole thing like she totally _wasn’t_ freaking out over the fact that her little crush had kissed her. That her _married_ crush kissed her. And it wasn’t much use trying to debate it in her head that she wasn’t vying for Therese’s affection either. No, Carol was fucked, positively and utterly _fucked_ , and she knew that.

Still, Carol was a _very_ good actress. Therese, on the other hand, made it a little more obvious what she felt. She looked distressed, maybe a little smug, but Carol might have been imagining that. She could have been imagining everything. “No, he wouldn’t,” she agreed. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I…”

“No worries,” she said. How could she salvage the situation? Even before the question was asked in her mind, she knew. It didn’t mean she had to like it, of course. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Yeah.” Therese swallowed and nodded. “Thank you, again, for the ride.”

Even after she left the car, Carol couldn’t find it in herself to move. There were a thousand thoughts running in her head at one time, and not a single one helped her feel anything other than distraught.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> friendly reminder: therese always engaged interactions w/ carol in the book (therese saying "i love you"?? ICONIC!!!) and i am so fucking gay guys im so fuckign g
> 
> im also taking a few liberties with therese's character here but hopefully for the better of the story. hey, also, can you tell that i study music theory and history and also im a huge fucking nerd. welcome to self-projection city, lads. anyways uh, therese's Super Original Song is just the ending theme from the ost for the movie. i say this because im actually learning how to play it myself (ive actually arranged a few tracks from the carol soundtrack. maybe ill post them someday, who knows).
> 
> also!! thank you for 100+ kudos!!! i have been blessed in the form of an extremely nice following. bless each n every single one of u. <3 <3 <3
> 
> u can watch me suffer on twitter as @impartiens!! sometimes i liveblog my writing experience and also i cry about girls so basically We Have Fun Here.


	7. aspect ratio

“This looks nice, doesn’t it?” Therese cocked her head and veered to stare at Carol.

Around two or three days ago, Therese requested that Carol go shopping with her. Furniture shopping, arguably, was something you did with the person you were sharing said apartment with. Unless your friend happens to work at a furniture store. And that Therese’s husband wasn’t going to be there with them. “Richard’s preparing for an artist’s exhibition, he said he doesn’t have the time.” It was a good enough reason, but Carol wondered if it was an excuse more than anything else. Perhaps her imagination, but then again… Maybe not.

Then she realized that she was being stupid, that this wouldn’t have meant anything if Therese hadn’t kissed her on that day (besides, Carol was still vouching for the idea that she was in the middle of some kind of crazy fever dream). So it was a definite yes for her, and soon enough, they were standing in front of a sleek red felt couch that they’d picked out. It’d been delivered today, and Therese called Carol in again to help her set up. “Charming,” Carol said with approval. She sat down and rubbed at the material slowly, thinking. “It’s comfortable. You could sit for hours, cuddling up with Richard and watching movies…”

Her tone trailed off as she looked around, then looked to Therese. It took about two seconds for Therese’s expression to morph into one of hurt.

Oh. Bad move, Carol.

“Carol, you’re not still upset about the…” Therese didn’t say it, but Carol knew exactly what she was talking about. “God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have, I wasn’t thinking and it was just…” Carol could infer a multitude of reasonings that would never be said. Therese misread the mood. That she felt like anything was possible. That she was in lo… No, best forget that thought before it even begins.

“Actually, I was trying my best to forget about that,” Carol said, and Therese was very visibly stung about the remark Now, why was that? Carol exhaled sharply, turning away so that she didn’t have to see Therese, who went to lean against the nearby table.

“I guess that it’s best to just… Forget.” Therese’s lips were pressed into a thin line. There was an implication behind her words, the idea that she’d been thinking about the event just as much as Carol had. Maybe even more. And Carol supposed that she had the right as well, seeing as how _she_ was the one who was actually married.

The silence that stretched between them was uncomfortably long, to the point where Carol stood up and dusted her legs. “I suppose I should be going, then,” she said. She wanted to call Abby, because she hadn’t talked to her for a while, and she had _certainly_ not spoken to Abby about this whole mess. It was admittedly selfish of her, to want to run away from her problems at the first sign of sourness. “I’ve got some stuff I need to attend to later in the day.”

Therese, however, was not so willing to let go. Really, it was kind of shocking. “Carol, I made a mistake. And we don’t have to talk about this ever again, alright? I was a mess. I don’t mean to make things awkward.” Hurriedly, she added, “Or to ruin our _friend_ ship.” _Sure, friendship._ _We’ll call it that._

Carol’s tongue clicked. “I think you misunderstand, Therese.” She’d resolved to try and push Therese as far away as possible, but really, Carol knew that was a very schoolgirl-esque desire. She knew she was being ridiculous. Adults are supposed to be the ones who resolve this type of things with words, rather than with frightful glances and nervous tells. Carol forced a smile. “I’m sure you’ve been able to figure out already that my own feelings are… Well, complicated. To say the least, I mean. There’s no point in talking about it, so let’s forget about it.”

No, there was absolutely no way that she would be able to forget it. Therese wouldn’t be able to either; they both knew that very well. Though Carol would do her best to try.

“You’re still leaving?” Therese asked. Was that the hint of desperation that lingered on the edge of her tone, or was that Carol’s own subconscious looking for a reason to stay? God, Carol really was turning into a lonesome old woman, and she’d only barely hit her thirties. “O-Oh, you’re well within your rights to do so, of course. Of course. I don’t want to sound clingy.” Really, her mannerisms were proving the opposite. But Carol supposed that she was being clingy as well.

“I don’t want to cancel plans if I don’t have to, but I’m sure you understand.” Carol smiled regretfully. “Though if you’d like, I’d be more than willing to do something with you, maybe in the afternoon?” She would be working up until three, but after that she would go anywhere Therese wanted to go. Funny how that worked, she supposed.

“I’m free all day tomorrow as well. Well, I guess I’m usually free anyways, but I’m not going job hunting or anything like that, so…” Therese seemed to fold in on herself, now the meek little thing she’d first seen back Gertrude’s. Carol felt a sort of pity for Therese, in that aspect.

“I’ll text you, alright?”

“Yes, of course.” And Therese smiled. How Carol loved that smile.

 

Abigail, however, did not seem to be so pleased with the way Carol handled the entire situation. “Carol, you _absolutely_ useless lesbian.” Her head hung in her hands and shook gently. The accusatory tone in Abby’s voice did not quite rub off that well on her.

“What?” she asked with suspicious eyes. “What was I _supposed_ to do? Hold her tenderly and kiss her back? We don’t live in a drama movie, Abby. And God forbid we do, because we _all_ know what happens to people when they’re caught cheating. I’m not about to just—”

“No, you nitwit. You were right in that you shouldn’t have kissed her back, though could you imagine? No, no. I mean that you’re acting like a, and excuse my French here, bitch because you’ve got the mentality of a flustered girl who’s half your actual age? You know who acts the way you do? Girls. If she came to you in the _middle of the night_ because her boy toy’s mistreating her, there’s probably a reason for that! You think she needs to catch any more shit from the like, maybe _one_ person she’s managed to make friends with?”

Abby’s words fell on the silence of the room for a good moment. Carol could very easily see the sense in her words, but she was _stubborn_ , and that’s exactly why Abby had to be so harsh with her. Still… “Sure, I’m the one acting like a bitch.”

“Tough love, babe.” Abby leaned back with her tongue sticking out quite rudely. Carol’s eyes rolled, almost like a petulant teenager riding the sweet waves of rebellion. Abby continued. “I _am_ a bitch, that’s just how these kinds of things work. But still, you know that I’m like, at least a _little_ right, don’t you?”

She was. She absolutely was. But if Carol were to admit that, it’d be admitting that Abby was, in any capacity, right. So she didn’t say anything, while Abby kept going on and on and on. “I don’t know why you’re like this, really. If she seems genuinely remorseful for it, and _you’re_ pushing her away even still, what does that look like, really? It looks like you hate her and that she’s ruined everything because of this. When it hasn’t, because you’re not a fucking two year old, and you don’t act like one.”

“I _know_ , alright? So, like, what. Do I just. Go up to her tomorrow and apologize or something like that?”

“You _really_ don’t know?” There was the classic amused Abby tone. Carol kind of felt like a child being laughed at for her own social ineptitude… Which, she supposed, was exactly what was happening then and there. “Yes, of course you do! If it’s not a big deal she’s just shrug and say so. Don’t overthink it, you’ll be golden.”

Only, Carol hardly thought that she would be golden at all, but she wasn’t going to say that in front of Abby. “Alright, alright. I’ll try. Can we talk about something else now? I’ve been rambling on and on about my romantic throes and I’ve left hardly any room for you to talk! How could I _ever_ be so selfish in the face of my most supportive friend?” Her voice was laced with sarcasm, which Abby happily ate up with a very silly, very lopsided grin.

“Damn straight!” Given the opportunity to do so, Abby could talk about herself for days. Well, not even just herself, really. She could talk about anything and anyone for days and days on end. Even this little bit of drama between Carol and Therese could be spun into a weeklong story complete with five body paragraphs and a _stellar_ thesis. So Abby began to launch into her own little anecdotes, specifically with this cute little redhead she’d met a few weeks ago or so.

The only thing was that despite all of Abby’s words and jokes, both inappropriate and the alternative, Carol couldn’t get the idea of Therese off her mind.

 

[Carol Aird – 12:06 PM]: Are u still ready to go out today? :)

[Carol Aird – 2:19 PM]: Hi, Therese! You there? :0

[Carol Aird – 3:27 PM]: … Hey. Still free.

[Carol Aird – 4:01 PM]: I’m not mad at you, you know that, right?

_Missed call from Carol Aird at 4:38 PM._

_Missed call from Carol Aird at 4:56 PM._

 

The first thought Carol had was anger. She tried her best not to help it, but she couldn’t help but to be a little annoyed. All this emotional distress and for _what_ ? For Therese to just blow her off, like that? She spent _so long_ thinking about the perfect things to say (despite Abby’s reassurances and urges for her not to overthink the whole ordeal, supposedly). All for naught.

Around the two hour mark, Carol began to feel worried. Maybe Abby was right and she squandered the whole fucking thing. Fuck, she was such an _idiot_. There was always the possibility that something came up, that maybe Therese had fallen asleep (yeah, right, for the better part of an entire day?), or that she had to go out of the house because Richard ushered her somewhere, or…

 

_Missed call from Carol Aird at 8:19 PM._

 

“We are not able to reach the desired number at this time,” the monotonous voice droned on. This was the _third_ call and Therese still hadn’t picked up. Either her number had been blocked, or her phone was dead, or any other number of things. Carol figured she’d leave a voicemail, just to try.

“Hi, Therese!” Carol forced some sort of chipper noise into her tone. She’d only have a few seconds to make this really count, so… “I missed you, today. Please call me back if you want to, or at least give me a text. I’m sorry if I seemed off yesterday, I won’t make excuses for my behaviour. I’m worried about _you_. Give me a call if you can! I hope you’re doing well.”

 

Another day of twiddling thumbs and dull silence. If Carol had to go through one more day of this insanity, she may as well go genuinely mad.

In the week that Carol had been away from Therese, she found that her mind never strayed too far. Borne half out of her own stubbornness, Carol had yet to drive by Therese’s apartment. The other half of the issue was, well, to put it simply… Genuine fear. If Therese really was mad at her, and was just ignoring her… Then wouldn’t it be better for Carol to leave her alone, rather than Carol hounding after her like a creep?

What would Carol want if she was the one in this situation? Well, what she’d basically just described. If Therese still wanted to speak to her (and that was a _huge_ if) then she would do it when she was ready. What good would Carol do if she was forcing things together? What would Therese even say? The thought kind of scared her, more that it realistically should have for a woman she’s only known for a few weeks.

Still, Carol felt absolutely _miserable_. It was kind of sad, really.

For a moment, she considered dialing up Abby and releasing all of her woes onto her, wailing about how she messed up and asking for her ever-so-helpful advice (which Carol was sure would boil down to a simple “wow, go fuck yourself”). As though Abby could read her mind, Carol’s device lit up with the familiar tunes of Abby’s ringtone filling the room.

“Hello?”

“Carol, you will _not_ believe who just showed up at the store.”

“Who—What are you talking about?”

"Who the fuck else would I be talking about? Therese is here! She’s asking for _you_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT........ A SURPRISE UPDATE FROM YOURS TRULY........
> 
> updates wont be consistent as they were when i first started, at least not until the december writing project gets done and finished, but until then, we've got this! its been a month since i last posted, but hey we did it!!
> 
> thank you so much for reading!


	8. shutter release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finally got my internet back which means an update ayy lmao. in the meantime i did get to play some fallout 4 (i heard billie holiday's easy living and screamed) which means more inspiration for carol aus, i guess. you'll probably see another fic go up soon that'll be updated alongside this one, though it'll be shorter. i have..... an embarrassing amount of ideas.
> 
> anyways, i hope yall enjoy reading!

Carol, by all means, was not the kind of person who liked to think too hard about her own feelings. They were complicated, intangible, and oftentimes so dense that it was simply better, more convenient for her to forget that whole part of her even really existed. She _especially_ didn’t like having to think about her romantic feelings in relation to those of others. Having been through the thick and thin of it all—unrequited love, as both the receiver and the victim, mutual love and mutually beneficial love (for they were not the same thing)—she thought that perhaps she could close that chapter of her life.

Yet here she was, thinking _too_ much about it and _too_ hard, all because of one Therese. Carol felt that she was an absolute _mess_ , but only in Therese’s presence. Now she was beginning to feel like a mess _out_ of it as well, evidenced not only by the previous few days of her life, but by the awkward drive down to the furniture store as well.

Abby had explained to her that Therese wouldn’t exactly tell her what it is she wanted with Carol in specific. “I told her I’d leave you her number and name so you could call her later, and she’s like. She’s not moving? I think she’s waiting until I actually do it, so uh, you got a paper?”

“I don’t _need_ one,” Carol said with a rather annoyed tone of voice. “I already _have_ her number.”

“Well, good on you!”

“Yeah, she also hasn’t been answering my calls for the past _week_.”

Abby sucked in a pity-fueled breath. “Oh, shit. Tough luck? So, like, you don’t want the number, or…”

“Can you ask if she’d be willing to wait long enough so I can head down there?”

So that’s where Carol was at, basically. Only, instead of thinking of apologies, she was thinking of the perfect accusations to hurl at Therese. Wondering why it was that she had the gall to ignore her for a full week, then had the audacity to call her down to the furniture store where she worked. There was absolutely no reason for her to be this angry, that she knew. And yet, thinking about Therese, ditching their plans after something so simple… Her anger was fueled higher and higher, a flame that began to spin into a vortex of grody emotion. When Carol actually walked through the doors, she was practically _seething_.

“Hi, Carol.”

Carol paused. She looked at Therese, and she was violently reminded of the night that she picked her up at her apartment. The light in her eyes were gone, and her lips curled down into a little frown. Just as Carol wasn’t pleased to be here, Therese wasn’t happy either. Her arms crossed and she dodged the gaze Therese tried so desperately to hold.

“What did you need me for?” The things Carol had originally planned to say vanished. Anger wouldn’t do her any good. And, well, with Abby in the back giving her wide eyes and a look that screamed ‘if you do what I think you’re about to do, you’ll ruin it’, Carol would do well not to run her mouth. Instead, and perhaps more desperately, she opted for a, “I’ve been worried sick.”

“My phone broke.”

Oh.

That would explain it, Carol supposed, yet she didn’t want to believe it either. It felt like the world’s worst cop-out, too perfect, too convenient. “You couldn’t use someone else’s phone?” She could hear the emotion bleed into her voice, and how Carol hated it so.

“I didn’t remember your number.”

 _Yes you did. You absolutely did._ But Carol couldn’t say that, because she didn’t have any proof of that, and she was being spiteful for… What reason? Did she even have the right to be upset? It was just a week. And Therese was in no way indebted to her for anything that she’s done. It was Carol’s own selfish desires that pushed her to be this way. “What happened to your phone?”

Therese paused for what seemed to be forever. “Oh, I… I dropped it.” Carol didn’t quite know what to think, and before she got the chance to try to piece an explanation together, Therese continued. “I wanted to stop in earlier, because I… I didn’t really want to let go of you like that, you know? I’m sorry, it must have looked like I _hated_ you. I don’t. Hate you, I mean. You’re… God.”

Carol understood. It was kind of hard to have a heart to heart with Abby watching from the counter and one other person browsing their wares. “Don’t worry too much about it. Do you want to get out of here? Maybe make up for lost time.” The last two words were emphasized involuntarily, a subtle jab that hinted at the true depths of Carol’s feelings.

“Of course,” Therese graced her with the hint of a smile, the thing that Carol had found herself missing most of all. “Where do you want to go?” The way that her hands nervously play together tell Carol that she’d been planning for this, that there was an unnamed anticipation.

“Where do _you_ want to go?”

Therese paused, filled with a look of faux-innocence. “Well, there’s a certain place I’ve been thinking of…” Her voice trailed off. “It would give me the chance to show you something else too, I think.”

So Carol let Therese punch the location into her new phone (she wasn’t lying about that—Carol made special note of Therese’s missing phone charm) and they drove. “I should probably tell you where we’re going, shouldn’t I?” Therese laughed, “There’s a small cafe down the road, found it out the other day when I was out with Richard. Their cheesecake is to die for, Carol.”

They pulled up to the cafe, a homely little place that Carol found herself admiring. Therese smiled to the barista and waved, “Hi, Gen!” The barista waved back, calling out a greeting of her own. Therese leaned over to whisper to Carol, “That’s Genevieve. Not only does she work here, but she’s a little bit of a local legend here. Vocal legend too, for that matter.”

Therese implored that they share one of the cakes on display. “Looks like we’re sold out on cheesecake, but lucky for you, the sponge cake is just as good.” They sat down with Therese’s prize. Naturally, she took the first bite with a flashy wink in Carol’s general direction.

“Looks like someone has a sweet tooth,” Carol teased, to which Therese only stuck out her tongue cutely. Yes, this was nice, and Carol had also missed these kinds of shenanigans. “Do you bake?”

“I try,” Therese spoke between bits of cake, “But I hate to admit that I’m an absolute disaster in the kitchen. At least in the baking department. I can and will make you a mean omelette, though.”

Halfway into their meal, Therese suddenly stood up. “Hold up, I’m going to be right back.” With a parting wink, Carol was left alone. Therese made her way over to where Genevieve sat, then pointed to the instrument setup that sat on a stage in the corner of the cafe. Gen shrugged, so Therese happily bounded back to Carol.

“I didn’t tell you yet, but I did manage to land myself a few gigs both here and in some neighbouring lounge bars. I figured I might show you one of the songs I perform, if you’re down?”

Carol flashed a smile of her own. “I’m ‘down’ if you are.”

Therese took a few minutes to adjust the sound and quality. It was a small electric piano, but what intrigued Carol was that she was also setting up a microphone that sat on top of the keys. She tried to recall if she’d ever heard Therese sing before, and found that she was drawing blanks.

Eventually, Therese began to play, a jazzy, bittersweet tune that Carol had never heard before. Something she must have learned after the night at her house, she supposed. And, as to be expected, Therese’s singing voice was nice.

_Last night, we said our goodbyes. Rain pouring down, gathering like tears in my eyes… I see, there’s nothing to be done. I’ll pour a bit of water to sugarvine._

Carol watched with admiration, leaned up against her own propped up hand. The song itself felt lazy and melancholic, though the lyrics seemed to hint at some sort of underlying feeling. She wondered if the song had been learned in the week they spent apart, if this was Therese’s own feelings being sung out to her. It was possible, of course, that she was overthinking the whole thing. In fact, that seemed to be the most likely situation altogether.

_In the end, it’s just another mood so, shoop, shoop. Let go of that bad mood, mood. Clear it with a whoop, whoop… In the end I guess I’m better off without you._

The song ended with a fancy little flourish, and Carol joined the chorus of pleased clapping that sounded out around the cafe. Therese bowed, then came back to Carol. “So? What’d you think?”

“You perform well,” Carol said with a smile. “What’s it called?”

“Sugarvine,” Therese replied. “It’s fairly obscure, but I did with it what I could.”

That made sense, yes. “Did you pick this song for any particular reason?”

“Besides the fact it sounds good? It just goes to show how out of place everything feels after you break off a relationship,” Therese said with a shrug. “These things you used to do without thinking of them, they suddenly stick out like sore thumbs, don’t they?”

Carol wondered. “Yeah, you’ve got a point.” Though she normally would have been more than happy to discuss semantics with Therese, she, for whatever reason, just wasn’t feeling it anymore. She stared at the remains of cake, then suddenly deciding she didn’t want it anymore, pushed the plate to Therese. “You want to finish this and then get out of here?”

“Oh, of course.”

They were back on the road in the next ten minutes, although this time, Carol didn’t quite have a destination in mind. “I’ll take you back to your place,” she decided after a moment.

“Actually,” Therese said, placing a cautious hand over top of Carol’s thigh. Her eyes didn’t move, but there was a sudden acuteness she felt that she didn’t have before. “I hope I’m not intruding, and if you had other plans, feel free to say no, but I’d like to go to your place again.”

“I can do that.”

The rest of the ride was more quiet, although Carol had the radio playing something in the meanwhile. Out of the corner of her eye, she could catch Therese stealing glances of her. Carol tried not to let her mind wander, though the keyword was ‘try’.

Therese’s entire mood shifted the moment they were behind closed doors. “I thought that I could be subtle with you, Carol,” she said quietly.

“What do you mean?” She wondered, briefly, if Therese could feel the way her pulse quickened. If it was from nervousness or excitement, she was unsure.

Her shoes were kicked off, so Carol took off her heels as well. “I… I know I’m overstepping my boundaries here. But Christ, Carol, I haven’t known how to feel the whole time. I feel both exhilarated when I look at you, but there’s always something missing. I wouldn’t know how to put a name to that, or if I even could. I want to put myself out there for you, but I can’t do that and I _shouldn’t_ do that because I’m married and I’m supposed to be Richard’s perfect wife. Yet, yet, yet!” Therese took a large breath, then exhaled. The drive that had suddenly taken her disappeared in that instant.

“You told me to forget about it, and yet it’s been the only thing on my mind. Not just the kiss, mind you, but my feelings for you in general. I figure it’s better if I’m transparent with you, because if I’m not, then who are we?” Therese shook her head. “I don’t know, I don’t. When I think about Richard, I see the perfect family model. Two kids, maybe a dog. But there’s no love, no passion. And I wonder if I’ve ever felt that way for him in the first place. I trick myself into believing that I love him because we’re married, I tricked myself into marrying him because his promises and caramel-coated words were so sweet. But I think about you, and in perspective, everything is so _off_.”

Carol knew exactly where it was going, but she asked anyways. “What are you getting at?”

“I don’t love Richard, that’s point number one.” She bit her lower lip, then continued. “And it feels silly, but… I’ve been attracted to you since that night. It’s a dizzying sort of love. I don’t know what to do with myself.” Therese took a careful step towards Carol.

The incessant nagging voice in her head asked Carol just what it was she had to lose. If something so blissful could even affect her in the first place? Hadn’t Carol been thinking about a situation like this for a while? And with Therese right in front of her, both willing and desperate… Carol was supposed to be the morally sound person. She wasn’t supposed to be kissing other men’s wives.

So that’s exactly why Carol gave in to Therese and closed the gap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> geez carol you're acting pretty gay arent you :/
> 
> the song therese performs is [dixie flatline's sugarvine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xrQiKaprLU) a japanese song i've had on repeat for a while. forgive me for using it but its a bop :<
> 
> thank you for reading!


	9. white balance

No one ever really talks about the morning after. Carol found that the first few minutes of it were blissful, a happy sort of mood where she could just tuck her nose into Therese’s backside and forget about everything, really. Then it changed, because Therese still wasn’t awake and Carol was and it was really only dawning on her now that she slept with a married woman. Carol shot up, eyes bleary with tiredness but her mind racing at the speed of light.

Carol got up and decided immediately that she was going to get a robe for both her and Therese. She had never, not in thirty years went to bed with nothing but a pretty person in her arms. Yet there she was, dressed in the way God intended, for lack of a better term. She went to the drawer to grab a set of underwear, only to pause. She was naked, and so was Therese, and the realization that Carol really hadn’t held herself back… With a newfound sense of annoyance, she reached for the closet to grab a robe and secured it snugly around her. Gruffly, she pulled out another robe, hardly able to tell if it had been one of hers or Harge’s, and threw it onto the bed for Therese to pick up whenever she decided to get up.

“It’s far colder than it has any right to be,” she muttered to herself. More than anything else, she hated that she had to leave the bed that she was in, but she would die of awkwardness if she remained. Still, it felt so much better now that she wasn’t holding walling herself off.

Carol left her bedroom and closed the door after her. She’ll let Therese sleep for another half-hour and then wake her up. She hadn’t mentioned needing to do anything, but there was the whole… Richard debacle.

Carol leaned up against the wall outside of her room and sighed. It wasn’t like she _should_ care. Richard meant absolutely nothing to her, the real prize was Therese. But did she really need Carol? What Therese needed was stability, and to be frank, Carol was anything but. At least not after she separated with Harge, but even then.

Overthinking it won’t do her any good. She should get some breakfast (when was the last time she cooked for herself?) and then see if Therese wanted any (she made edible food, but not good food, so what was the point?). Then… Do what? Send Therese away? Carol moved away from the wall with a certain kind of languidness.

The kitchen looked exactly the same as the first time Therese came to her house, though this time, the mood was lost. Perhaps it was the lack of music. Or the guilt that tugged at Carol’s heart. Alright, so perhaps she was still walling herself up, but she was trying.

Her eyes glanced over the contents of her cupboard, and suddenly, Carol decided she didn’t want to cook. Cereal would have to do, just like cereal had done for the past few months. She reached for some off-brand cereal box that had been almost-finished-but-not-quite, and whirled around to slap it on the counter. When she turned, there was Therese.

She was not what Carol would describe as appropriately dressed.

Carol went back to preparing her cereal, even as Therese leaned forward to lean on the counter. She had no idea how Therese could do it, wake up after a night like that and still look like an absolute queen. “How was your sleep?” she asked, alluding not to Therese’s whole dress situation.

The grin on her lips was impish and catlike, a very clear-cut goal in mind. Carol knew it just as well as Therese did. She poured milk into her bowl. “I had a _rather_ nice night,” Therese replied, and she could almost hear the wink in her voice. Carol couldn’t resist a smile and cursed herself for letting Therese have that effect on her.

“That’s good,” Carol said dismissively. Perhaps this was not the best way to work, especially following last week’s grief. Did she truly want a repeat of that, especially when this time, she would have no one to blame but herself? “Did you want some?” She thrust the bowl in Therese’s direction.

“Oh, I’m starving, but I don’t think I’m in the mood for cereal.” Carol watched Therese as she circled around the counter and strolled towards her in a lazy way, a pleasant smile on the edge of her lips. The smirk came to Carol’s lips naturally.

“I’m off the menu, darling.” Ignoring Therese’s half-joking whine of protest, Carol stole a spoon from the drawer next to them and spooned a mouthful of cereal into her mouth. “Mm, this is good. Love the taste of dry wheat thins.”

Therese laughed, stepping back. “Alright, you win. I’ll be right back.” With a wink and a flourish, Carol was left by herself once more.

Another mouthful of cereal. A long, drawn-out sigh. There were definitely words that needed to be had, but Carol wasn’t one-hundred percent sure she was ready, or even willing to have them. She almost wished, for just a small second, that the circumstances had been just a little different. Because what good would it do her if she felt this awkward every time their gazes met each other? Absolutely none.

Therese reappeared a moment later, the robe that had been laid out on the bed loosely shrugged over her shoulders. “What’s the plan for today?” she asked, and Carol felt the annoyance from that morning bubble up in her throat again. She despised the carefree tone in Therese’s voice, and she wasn’t quite sure why she did.

“There is no plan,” Carol said, bringing her bowl of cereal to the table. Therese trailed behind her and pulled out the seat next to her. Carol would never get better at learning how not to let all of her emotions show in her voice. “You’re going home.”

Things might have been different if Carol had used a softer tone, rather than the harsh barely-breaking voice that had just slipped itself from the darkest ends of her feelings. But Therese’s narrowed eyes bore into her, and Carol felt the ugliness boil up and over until there was no stopping them. “What do you mean?”

“It means what it means. I’ll drive you home when you’re ready.”

“Are you pissed off because we slept together, Carol? You’re sounding pretty fucking pissed off.”

“Well, geez, Therese. Aren’t _you_ sounding a little miffed yourself? Maybe a nice cold shower would cool you down.”

Bitterly, Therese laughed. “Oh, that’s fucking hilarious. Treating me like a child while we’re at it? How’s that backpedaling feel, huh?”

“I never said—”

“—It was implied!”

“I’m not treating you like a child.”

“So why are you angry?” Carol had never heard this kind of frustration behind Therese’s voice. She seemed so soft-spoken, yet it was then that she realized that if she was left to her own devices, her own emotions could stir up a storm of anger. In that respect, she supposed they were the same. “You can’t fucking blame me for this one. Everything we did was mutual. It was mutual, alright? You can’t just put up that haughty tone of voice that I fucking _hate_ because you’re pissed off that we had sex, alright?”

“That’s not why I’m mad.”

“I think it’s _exactly_ why you’re pissed off.”

Carol shook her head. “It’s not.” But it was. It was, but that wasn’t the whole story either, she supposed. She took a deep breath, tried to count to ten. Therese stared at her expectantly. “We shouldn’t be doing this. And before you get your panties or lack thereof in a twist, listen to me, alright? It’s not _easy_ to just throw away all sense of morality because I think you’re pretty and yes, I do like kissing you.” Was that the hint of a proud smile on Therese’s lips? Carol would let her have it.

“Sure it is.”

“For you, maybe. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. For me, I mean. And—Okay, God, this is going to sound horrible, but are you sure that I’m the person you want? Truly? So, alright, you might not like Richard—”

“It’s more than just ‘not liking him’, Carol. I don’t expect you to know about this because I think… I tried to make it look not exactly obvious. But we fight. And sometimes he’s justified. Sometimes he isn’t. You know when I said I broke my phone last week? I didn’t drop it.” Therese looked away, leaving Carol to figure out the meaning behind her words.

She didn’t exactly like it.

Therese continued, “And it’s not like I can just leave him either. I don’t make any money on my own, I’m relying on him. That pisses _me_ off too, because I don’t like feeling like I’m a parasite. He uses that against me too, you know? So I can’t divorce him, I have nowhere to return to. My dad’s dead and my mom couldn’t give any less of a shit if I followed his footsteps.” Carol opened her mouth to speak, and Therese cut her off yet again. “Don’t you say anything either. I’m not going to accept your help either.”

“So where does that leave us, then?”

The silence grew over them again. Carol took her spoon and stirred up her cereal. Therese looked away, “I don’t know where it leaves us. Maybe you have a point.”

Out of all the stupid things that Carol has done since meeting Therese, what she was about to do probably ranked among the first for stupidest. “If we were to keep… This kind of relationship between us, there would have to be some ground rules.”

“Like?”

It was simple. They weren’t allowed to tell anyone (that one was a given, and Carol wasn’t exactly ready for the giant grilling that Abby would give her if she ever found out), they could only do this once or twice a week (so as not to arouse suspicion on Richard’s end, another given), and finally, this was only a friends with benefits sort of deal. The last rule had been a specific request on Carol’s part, because she was a coward and she didn’t want to think about her feelings in relation to Therese. It was just better that way.

“I think we’re good then,” Therese said with a nod. “If it’ll make you happier, I’ll take a cab back to my place, alright?”

“If you could,” Carol replied. “I might have work later in the day, I have to double-check.” That was a bold-faced lie, she wasn’t working at all, but she didn’t really want to spend much more time with Therese. That was silly, wasn’t it? Here she was, starting this stupid little affair and not even soaking up as much of the benefits as she could. It was stupid. _She_ was stupid. Yet there they were anyway. “Can you find the shower on your own?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll manage.” Therese stood up from her seat and smiled. Carol could hear her heart all the way in her throat and it only served to make her feel all the worse for everything she’s done. “I’ll be done in twenty minutes.”

“Take all the time you need.”

Her heart felt heavy, and perhaps she didn’t have the right to think about it that way. Carol opted to finish her cereal and grimaced. She left it for too long, and now it was soggy. She wasn’t exactly in the business of wasting food, so she stuck to finishing it anyway, but… A sigh passed through her lips, and she could only feel her heart sink lower and lower.

No, she didn't have the right at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy oh geez oh no :(
> 
> thank you for reading!! i dont have a whole lot to say about this chapter other than It Makes My Heart Hurt Because I Don't Like Hurting My Girls.  
> (sometimes.)


	10. artifacts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its a little short for the time ive been away, my excuse is that ive actually been drawing more carol than writing lol. i might update my old drawing fic and have it just be a general carol sketchdump, if yall are down for that? :0c
> 
> anyways, thank you for reading!

Of all the ways to start Carol’s day, a supposed ‘date’ with Hargess was decidedly not her favourite way to do so. She stirred her coffee somewhat absentmindedly, her thoughts scattered into a million different places all at once. She didn't want to be here. She’d rather be at home, lounging around with a flower encyclopedia on her lap, maybe with Therese on speakerphone. The thought was phased out of her mind almost immediately. For her own sake, she shouldn’t—couldn’t. It pretty much took rule three of their mutual agreement and stomped right all over it. And she couldn’t have that.

But there she was, wishing she had the kind of close familiarity with Therese that she could do things like that anyways. Carol sighed and took a sip, watching Harge as he moved from the counter to their table. He handed her a wrapped breakfast burger with a pleasant yet tired smile. “I know you didn’t ask for one, but I figure you should get something to eat.”

Though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, she appreciated the gesture more than she thought she would. “Thanks,” she managed with a forced smile of her own, unwrapping her food with little vigor. The past few weeks had been more or less the same, Carol tiredly dragging herself to and fro, calling Therese when she liked and spending time with her when she asked. Her energy was being sapped slowly, and she could really only feel like meeting with Harge would speed the process up tenfold.

So, why not just end the interaction as soon as she could? She took a bite, waited. “... Alright, gloves are off. Why am I here? Why are _you_ here?” She folded her arms over each other in a confident, almost bored fashion. But her heart felt heavy for a reason she didn’t quite know, not that Harge would ever have to know. “You’re not the kind of person who invites people out for leisure lunches, Harge.

Harge gave a sad chuckle, shaking his head. “I know I could never quite get anything past you, Carol.” So she had hit the nail on the head. The silence thickened between them, before he continued. For a man so typically stone-faced, Harge was uncharacteristically uneasy. “I just spent so long thinking about how you’d react.”

“Yeah, well, to what? I don’t know until you actually spit it out.” Her sleeplessness mixed with her own nerve, making for an unreasonably snappy Carol. It felt kind of good.

“Out with it then, I guess. Alright.” Harge took a deep breath, steadying himself. It made Carol wonder more, and then it finally came, “I’m moving to Florida, and I want to take Rindy with me.”

Then it suddenly didn’t feel good anymore.

“Oh, okay, cool. So you just expect me to say something like, ‘oh dearest Hargess, father of my child, I absolutely will let you hike all the way down to _Florida_ with my chi—’”

“Our child,” Harge interjected, and this only seemed to set Carol off all the more.  How pathetic did he have to be, saying this and that, putting up flimsy walls to protect himself from scathing words? If annoyance hadn’t been her thing before, it certainly was now. “Our child, Carol.”

“It’s semantics, Harge. You know what I meant,” she bit back icily. “You can’t just _do_ that, ask for her and expect that I’ll be alright with it. And—and, this was more important than leaving me alone to wonder what it was you wanted to talk to me about for literal actual _weeks_.”

Though she’d been trying to keep her tone low, Carol could feel the way her tone hiked up higher and higher with every little realization and racing thought. Why couldn’t he have told her this earlier so that she could get all this out beforehand? There had been absolutely no reason to keep it hidden from her.

“See, that’s why I didn’t want to bring it up to you personally, because you’d react like this…”

“Then you should have just contacted your attorney.” Carol could recognize that the only reason Harge even took the time out of his day to bother her in the first place was because if he had gotten a favorable response, they wouldn’t have to deal with court. But he wasn’t getting it, and it only seemed to make her more annoyed.

Joint custody had worked well for them. Carol was not enjoying the thought of having to fly all the way out to fucking Florida if she wanted to see her own child. And sure, it was selfish of Carol to desire Rindy all to herself, but it just wasn’t fair for Harge to decide that either.

Perhaps she wasn’t in the right. And perhaps she just didn’t care.

“Now, because I don’t want to make a fool of either you or me, I’m going to leave.” Keeping her voice level was probably the hardest part of this. “I expect to hear from Fred in the next few weeks, not from you. I’ll be picking up Rindy at _my scheduled time_ ,” the words were accentuated with a bitter poison, “so do make sure that she’s ready for me then.”

She left the diner with a haughty huff, leaving Harge on his own. It was only when she was sitting in her car did she realize that… Maybe acting like this would bite her in the ass later. Harge had never taken kindly to being ‘wrong’, to Carol not being the accommodative wife that she had always been when they were together. Then again, what right did he have to hide away the fact that he was moving for so long? (She had to remind herself that he wasn’t moving yet, that it had only been something on the edge of his mind, but Carol’s still mad about it anyways.)

Her phone buzzed in her pocket—some email newsletter that she had forgotten to cancel her subscription to. It's not the email that piques her interest, it's the giant green messenger icon on the top right of her screen. The same button that's just  _begging_ to be pressed and her own flimsy will. It’s bad, and Carol knew this, that Therese was beginning to grow into somewhat of a comfort item for her. Sleep with Therese when she was upset. Sleep with Therese when she wanted to celebrate. Sleep with Therese simply when she was feeling lonely and bored and wanted someone to hold close to her. Sometimes, not even sleep with Therese at all, just hang out for a while.

“She’s becoming the replacement me,” Abby had said some point, potentially as a joke, or perhaps a backhanded stab at her. Carol had taken it both ways, and perhaps a little badly while she was at it. The both of them knew very well how the Carol and Abby Escapades started and how it ended, and Carol wasn’t exactly a fan of remembering that rule 3 was a thing. A thing that she’d imposed on herself. An a rule that she had been continuously breaking ever since she set it up.

Perhaps becoming even more dependant on Therese would be her downfall.

But fuck it.

She picked up her phone and brought up Therese’s name. Carol wondered just when it was that Therese had suddenly become a ‘favourite’ on her contact list. The only other people who were on there were both Abigail and Harge, and Harge’s name was only there because she had forgotten to take it off (speaking of, she tapped the golden star and watched the colour drain from vibrant cold to boring white once more).

The whole exchange lasts but a scant ten minutes, and Carol’s off to Therese’s apartment to ‘hang out’ for a while. Richard would be out at four, and it’s fine anyways because Richard liked Carol, and Carol liked him. She liked him a considerable amount more when he wasn’t in the house and she didn’t have to look at him, but an uncomfortable minute is a small price to pay when it comes to Therese.

The thought of Harge is forgotten when Therese opened up the door with a small smile. “Carol,” she greeted softly, maybe even a little mysteriously. “Well? Come in!”

Carol smiled gratefully, and eyed Therese up and down. "Thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is more belivaird-centric, swearsies.


	11. autofocus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fair warning: i'm still kind of... not happy with the direction i took the story in (or at the very least, the pacing i did) but i'm gonna try to stick this one out to the end. but if i don't, this is pretty much my reason why. that and characterization feels all over the place (which is understandable, considering the fact that this started as my first carol fic).
> 
> the chapter's more or less the same length as the last one but this is more because i don't want to overpack chapters. :') thanks for bearing with me and my inconsistencies hdhkd......
> 
> and as always, thank you for reading!

Dependency. She had sworn off of it after ending her relationship with Harge, and here she was, starting up again with Therese. It was borderline ridiculous, perhaps a little ironic.

After Richard left, Therese offered to put on a movie. Carol, who’d been in dire need of a distraction in the first place was left with no choice to agree. The movie itself was a romantic comedy, something about the protagonist finding her soulmate on the day of her wedding—how truly ironic. Carol hadn’t been paying much attention throughout. In fact, she was sure that Therese hadn’t been either, but they sat, they pretended, and they held hands under the sheets.

Now the credits were rolling and Therese’s head lifted itself from her shoulder. Carol hated how it felt cold. Dependency at it’s finest.

Therese seemed to notice the sudden shift in mood. “Are you alright? Y’know, if the movie sucked that hard you could have just told me and I’d have been fine with doing something else.”

“No, no, not the movie. I mean—nothing at all, even. I’m fine, really.” Carol spoke, though they both knew that it wasn’t quite the case. “Well—I mean. God, I don’t know how the hell you put up with me.”

She laughed, “No, no, please. Go on.”

Carol sucked in a breath, “It’s just. You know Harge?” Therese nodded her understanding. “He wants to move to Florida. I can only guess it’s because his absolute _bitch_ of a mother wants him to, but what do I know? Anyway, he thought he might invite me out to a friendly breakfast and then dump the news that he wants to bring Rindy with him. It’s not like we can pass her off between the two of us the same way we’ve been doing before, and… God, she’s only four.” She let out a sigh.

“There’s no concrete plans?” she asked, leaning back into the other end of the couch.

Carol remained silent. “No, but this was also something he brought up weeks ago and then completely forgot to follow up on that. I’ve been pulling my hair out for weeks.”

“Yeah, but like… He hasn’t actually moved yet.”

Ah. So she’s playing devil’s advocate.

“Aren’t you being a little selfish?” Therese seemed hesitant at first. Then she mistook Carol’s speechlessness as a sign to continue. “I mean—it’s not like he was _trying_ to piss you off, right? And Rindy’s kind of his kid too, isn’t she? It doesn’t sound totally unreasonable to at least ask. How else was he supposed to do it?”

It shouldn’t have hurt. The lack of Therese’s approval, no immediate validation. It turned Carol sour when it shouldn’t have. The worst part of it all? She knew very well that Therese was simply trying to be the rational third party. Yet here Carol was, feeling anything _but_ rational. “Here’s how he was supposed to do it: not at all. Why are you _defending_ him anyway? What do you know? You’re just a child!”

How dare Therese assume.

“I’m a _child_?” Therese repeated, incredulous. She laughed in the same bitter way she did when they first argued and Carol felt the same gross feeling shoot through her heart. “Oh, that’s absolutely rich. I’m the child that you’re _fucking_ , in case you forgot! I’m young, sure, but why are you so intent on insinuating I’m no better than the common twelve year old? It’s not like I don’t know how to make my own decisions.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you’re sleeping with a woman old enough to be your mother, right?”

Therese shook her head, “What are you trying to get out of this, Carol? What’s the point? Are you being angry just because you can be?” She rose from the couch and pulled the blanket off Carol. “Furthermore, what makes you think _I_ deserve to be subjected to your little meltdown? After all, I’m just your on-the-side sex friend.”

“That’s not—”

“Are you sure? Are you _really_ sure?” Therese folded the blankets almost as though she were slamming the ends together. She may as well have been. “Why do we make up these _stupid_ rules if not to keep it a simple friends-with-benefits sort of deal? Does it make you feel better about sleeping with a married woman?”

Carol took in a deep breath. “I don’t… I don’t want to fight.”

Therese threw the blanket down onto the couch. “Good. Neither do I. It’s not like I enjoy being infantilized by you, I hope you realize.”

Carol sat up straight. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“What’s that? An apology from Carol Aird herself?”

“Now you’re being abrasive.”

Therese sat back down on the couch with a groan. “Yeah, I know. I don’t mean to.”

The silence that fell between them was unbearable. “This isn’t going to work out,” Carol muttered. “I don’t know what you want from me, and I’m certain that _you_ have no clue what it is I want from you.”

At this, Therese perked up. “Well, we can talk about it?”

God. Even though Carol knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that everything would come crashing down in an awkward and all-too-quick way, she still wasn’t prepared. Ha! As though life was going to wait for her before ripping the bandaid right off the wound.

But Carol still wanted to cling to security for as long as she could.

“Okay,” she said after a moment of clear hesitation. One that she was sure Therese had already picked up on, had already analyzed. “You can… you can ask me whatever you want. Anything you want to know.”

“What do you like about me?”

Carol’s stomach jumped. “I…” Such a simple question, and yet so complex at the same time. “You like to defy expectations, for one. I had painted you as a meek character, going with the crowd, never to strike out on your own. But you’re very forward, aren’t you? And… you’re passionate. Passionate and tender, even though you could burn a hole through a wall. You’re very sweet. Oh, and I like that you’re attracted to me.”

Therese laughed at that, “Carol, please!” But the tips of her ears reddened anyway.

It shouldn’t have made Carol feel warm. It’s kind of hard to think about things rationally when Carol had such a woman smiling in front of her. On the _other_ hand, kind of hard to forget about the golden ring on Therese’s finger.

“Alright, my turn,” Carol said, shifting on the couch to move just a little bit closer. “What do you want from me?”

“Oh boy, there’s so much to unpack.” Therese grinned. “I’ll ignore the obvious because I think I’ve already grilled you enough for the day. But I just… I dunno, I just want you to like me. Is that too cliche? I think I’ve hit a ten on the ‘gross and sappy’ scale.” Another beat, before, “Can I say the L-word? Just once.”

Carol could feign ignorance and piss Therese off. Again. But there’s no real point. So she did what was easiest, and said nothing.

“I love you.”

It’s not like Carol’s a writer. How could she describe the way her heart fluttered when Therese said those words? The kind of thing that solidifies a silly puppy crush into romance. It’s ethereal, untouchable, but Carol loved it.

“... I love you too.”

Therese finally moved back to Carol’s side and leaned back against her. “It’s good,” she began, “to hear you finally say that.”

Perhaps there were other things that Therese had wanted to say. Things like how Carol doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who would say ‘I love you’ so easily. Or she might have laughed at the fickleness of human nature, how they could go from bickering at each other to exposing themselves in the way they do.

But they say nothing, and Carol found that (almost) no other sound could compare.


	12. wide open

There’s always time to think when you’re laying in a dark bed, surrounded by the woman you adore and thoughts you’re far less a fan of.

She wasn’t quite sure when it was that she had fallen asleep. She wasn’t even quite sure of what time it was. Carol could hear someone in the kitchen but Therese was right next to her and there was surely only one other person who had access to the apartment. Their apartment. Richard’s apartment.

God. Fuck. She’s such a fucking idiot.

Of course they’d get caught eventually. It was inevitable. In every movie, in every book, in every life. It happened. Someone caught on, no matter whether it was during or after. And it never, _ever_ turned out favourably. Carol’s only regret was that they’d been caught too soon. Not even twenty-four hours between the L-word and that.

Carol could have cried, but it’d be even worse if Richard walked in on that.

Therese was asleep, hardly shifted when Carol forced herself out of bed. Her blouse was carefully draped on top of the office chair and she snatched it, ashamed. She didn’t take another look at Therese as she opened the door, nor did she take a look when she left the room. Carol hardly thought she’d be able to bear it.

The breath she took was involuntary. Richard turned around and smiled. Knowingly, sadly. _He knows,_ Carol thought, her lips pressed tightly against each other. _How could he not?_ “Evening, Mrs. Aird,” he spoke with a small wave. Carol gave a small nod of acknowledgement before Richard turned back around. He was cooking something for dinner. Carol caught a glance of the clock in front of her and grimaced—they’d been asleep for about five hours. Fuck.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a minute,” Carol said airily, as though nothing was wrong. For how she was acting, everything could have been fine, peachy. But it wasn’t. “Just need to grab my things.”

“Are you sure? I’ve got enough dinner here for the three of us.”

No. Carol didn’t want to. She couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t. So she reached into her mind, tried to find an excuse. “I had something roasting when I left the house.”

“Not since 4 o'clock, you didn’t.”

She paused. “... Well, I suppose I can stay for a few moments longer.” It’s a dangerous game that he played, although the dangers show more for her than they ever did for him. Uncomfortably, she shifted from foot to foot. Shall I wake up Therese?”

“No, no. Let her sleep.”

So they do. Carol took a seat, twiddled with her fingers. If her heart rose any more she’d be practically throwing it up, not to mention the fact it was vibrating like a goddamn jackhammer. She can’t stay. She shouldn’t. Stupid of her to not just leave. Stupid of her to sleep with Therese again.

“I really should g—”

“I know she doesn’t l—”

They both stopped and stared at each other. Carol was the first to look away. “You go first.”

Richard shrugged, looked back down at the boiling bot. “Therese. She doesn’t love me. So it doesn’t really surprise me that she’s sleeping around with you. But it’s—I dunno.” His hands clasped together and he looked up. He sighed. “Didn’t expect it to happen with a woman. Didn’t expect that woman to be you. Kinda expect better from the people you meet, you feel? I could tell you to get the fuck out of my apartment and tell you to stay away with Therese. Never come back, if I see you I’ll make sure you regret it. But that’s tiring, and you wouldn’t, and it never works that way.”

Carol didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say at all.

“I guess that you’re wondering what it is that I want out of this. Mm.” Richard reached over to turn off the stove. “Mostly it’s to make you feel guilty. I’ll admit that much. Beyond that? I don’t know. Marrying Therese… It was just delaying the inevitable. I love her. Maybe more than you do. If you do at all.”

“I do,” Carol said, quietly. It felt wrong to admit that to a married man. “I’m sorry.” The words were dry on her tongue, unfamiliar and repulsive.

“Yeah,” Richard shrugged once more. “I kept thinking that maybe if I did things differently we’d be fine. If we didn’t fight so much, if we shared more common interests, if I’d taken the time to get to know her more before slapping a ring on the ol’ finger.” Carol watched him move from stove to counter, than to the cupboards. “You can leave if you want, I get it.”

“Mm,” Carol nodded. She leaned over the edge of the couch to grab her bag, untouched since it’d been left there in favour of… other things. She stared at it for a moment before she let go of the bag. “No, no. I’ll stay for dinner, it’s fine.”

Richard smiled. “Yeah, sure. Do you mind setting the table while I get Therese up, then?”

“Be my guest,” Carol replied. Richard headed back to the room Therese had been sleeping in. Carol moved to take over, sighing as she did. If only the circumstances had been more convenient, if only. There wasn’t any use wishing things were different, as much as she wanted to, so she busied herself with plates and dishes and being upset with herself.

The couple reappeared a few moments later and Carol smiled at Therese. Therese looked to her with surprise, then with guilt. Carol carried the bowl of corn to the table and gestured to the array in front of her. “It looks good. Smells good, too.”

“Thanks,” Richard grinned. “Therese is hopeless when it comes to cooking, so I’ve gotten some practice in. Come, sit.” He tapped Therese on the shoulder and she wordlessly slinked over to the dinner table.

The dinner was eaten mostly in awkward silence and Carol wondered if she should just go. But then what? What would change? The sort of back-and-forth that they’d been pulling for weeks was tiring. She sighed, poked at her steak. “... Denial ain’t just a river,” Carol muttered, idly. “It’d be easier if you just told me to leave. Then I could at least pretend to hate you.” Was she talking to Richard? To Therese? Perhaps a combination of the two.

“I’m sorry?” Richard said.

“I’m sorry,” Therese said.

Carol continued, “I’m making things awkward for you. I get that. And… there’s this long discussion waiting to happen that _needs_ to happen but I don’t want it to. I’m not nearly drunk enough to even _begin_ to approach the thought and I know.” She waved a hand through her hair, closed her eyes. Groaned, loudly. “I should go. I really should. I’m sorry, and thank you for the dinner.”

She barely gave Richard the chance to explain herself, and Therese hardly tried. Figures, Carol thought with a hint of bitterness she’d grown all-too-familiar with. All this strife, all this back-and-forth. Doomed to repeat itself because the circumstances were inconvenient.

Carol grabbed the bag and left without another look back.

  


Why couldn’t people understand that if you call someone three times in a row and they hit decline every time, they don’t want to talk?

The phone rang out next to her bed again. She groaned and finally reached up Carol figured that she should probably answer her phone, given how desperate Mystery Person over here was to have a small chat. Hungover and groggy. It better be good. It was either Harge, Abby, or…

Or Therese. She let the phone ring out before cautiously peeking over to check. Surely enough, three missed calls. Carol bit her bottom lip, wondered if she had enough ibuprofen to warrant calling her back. Not that she was given much of a choice, considering the fact that her phone lit up with another incoming call.

“I’m up, I’m up,” Carol groaned, as though she hadn’t noticed who it was that was calling her. “Hello?”

“I’m divorcing Richard.”

Carol stopped. “Well shit, Therese. Way to start off all gung-ho like that, at least ease me into it.” Now she was starting to sound like Abby, and how she hated it. “Are you alright? Do you want to talk about it?”

“We talked a lot. And, I don’t know. It’s easier to toss him away than to continue to this kind of relationship. And if I don’t, and if I pursue something with you, you’ll be held-back and showing all kinds of restraint and I’ll hate every second of it. I don’t mean to make things awkward.”

“That’s not…” Except for the fact that it is. “Okay. Is there some sort of ulterior motive to you calling me?”

“First, I think you deserve to know,” Therese said with a shrug. “Secondly… You already know I’m not getting very much out of this. And since the arrangement is already convenient…”

“You want to move in with me.”

Therese made a noise. “Mm. Yeah. I can pay rent, or whatever. And we don’t even have to really talk that much, if it makes you uncomfortable. S’just. Tough, right now.”

Carol certainly had the money to allow Therese to stay and do as she pleased, even if Therese didn’t decide to pay rent. And… Carol could handle Therese emotionally, surely. Perhaps this back-and-forth could stop too, with Richard out of the picture and Therese available to be in her arms 24/7. Not a bad arrangement, if Carol were to say so herself.

So why was she hesitating?

Because it was what she was used to. No use in putting up a front now. “Yeah. Let me know a week before you move in, I’ll set aside a day to help you get your stuff in, alright? I’ll clear out the spare room.” It’d be the first thing she’d do after cleaning up for the day. Perhaps now that she was unable to back out of her decision, it made Carol all the more giddier to start. Yeah. Yeah, it’d be nice.

“Didn’t expect it to be that easy,” Therese laughed. “Maybe it’s ‘cause we’ve both been so difficult. Makes it hard to believe.”

“Yeah.” Carol felt herself smiling on the other end of the phone. “Are you free to head outside today? I’m thinking we should catch a late breakfast.”

“Brunch?” Carol can hear the grin in Therese’s voice. “It’s 2:00 PM, Carol! Brunch officially ends at 12:00 PM, this is an undisputed fact and I will not allow you to fight me on this!”

Carol rolled out of bed, phone pressed to her ear. Yeah.

She’s happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. wow its been forever  
> 2\. my chapters get shorter every time i post them and i am sorry.
> 
> thank u for reading!!!


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